Clemens and his wife were always privately assisting worthy and
ambitious young people along the way of achievement. Young actors
were helped through dramatic schools; young men and women were
assisted through college and to travel abroad. Among others Clemens
paid the way of two colored students, one through a Southern
institution and another through the Yale law school.
The mention of the name of Gerhardt in the preceding letter
introduces the most important, or at least the most extensive, of
these benefactions. The following letter gives the beginning of the
story:
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Private and Confidential.
HARTFORD, Feb. 21, 1881.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Well, here is our romance.
It happened in this way. One morning, a month ago--no, three
weeks--Livy, and Clara Spaulding and I were at breakfast, at 10 A.M.,
and I was in an irritable mood, for the barber was up stairs waiting
and his hot water getting cold, when the colored George returned from
answering the bell and said: “There's a lady in the drawing-room wants
to see you.” “A book agent!” says I, with heat. “I won't see her; I will
die in my tracks, first.”
Then I got up with a soul full of rage, and went in there and bent
scowling over that person, and began a succession of rude and raspy
questions--and without even offering to sit down.
Not even the defendant's youth and beauty and (seeming) timidity were
able to modify my savagery, for a time--and meantime question and answer
were going on. She had risen to her feet with the first question; and
there she stood, with her pretty face bent floorward whilst I inquired,
but always with her honest eyes looking me in the face when it came her
turn to answer.
And this was her tale, and her plea-diffidently stated, but
straight-forwardly; and bravely, and most winningly simply and
earnestly: I put it in my own fashion, for I do not remember her words:
Mr. Karl Gerhardt, who works in Pratt & Whitney's machine shops, has
made a statue in clay, and would I be so kind as to come and look at it,
and tell him if there is any promise in it? He has none to go to, and he
would be so glad.
“O, dear me,” I said, “I don't know anything about art--there's nothing
I could tell him.”
But she went on, just as earnestly and as simply as before, with her
plea--and so she did after repeated rebuffs; and dull as I am, even
I began by and by to admire this brave and gentle persistence, and to
perceive how her heart of hearts was in this thing, and how she couldn't
give it up, but must carry her point. So at last I wavered, and
promised in general terms that I would come down the first day that fell
idle--and as I conducted her to the door, I tamed more and more,
and said I would come during the very next week--“We shall be so
glad--but--but, would you please come early in the week?--the statue
is just finished and we are so anxious--and--and--we did hope you could
come this week--and”--well, I came down another peg, and said I would
come Monday, as sure as death; and before I got to the dining room
remorse was doing its work and I was saying to myself, “Damnation, how
can a man be such a hound? why didn't I go with her now?” Yes, and how
mean I should have felt if I had known that out of her poverty she had
hired a hack and brought it along to convey me. But luckily for what was
left of my peace of mind, I didn't know that.
Well, it appears that from here she went to Charley Warner's. There was
a better light, there, and the eloquence of her face had a better chance
to do its office. Warner fought, as I had done; and he was in the midst
of an article and very busy; but no matter, she won him completely.
He laid aside his MS and said, “Come, let us go and see your father's
statue. That is--is he your father?” “No, he is my husband.” So this
child was married, you see.
This was a Saturday. Next day Warner came to dinner and said “Go!--go
tomorrow--don't fail.” He was in love with the girl, and with her
husband too, and said he believed there was merit in the statue. Pretty
crude work, maybe, but merit in it.
Patrick and I hunted up the place, next day; the girl saw us driving up,
and flew down the stairs and received me. Her quarters were the second
story of a little wooden house--another family on the ground floor. The
husband was at the machine shop, the wife kept no servant, she was there
alone. She had a little parlor, with a chair or two and a sofa; and the
artist-husband's hand was visible in a couple of plaster busts, one of
the wife, and another of a neighbor's child; visible also in a couple of
water colors of flowers and birds; an ambitious unfinished portrait
of his wife in oils: some paint decorations on the pine mantel; and an
excellent human ear, done in some plastic material at 16.
Then we went into the kitchen, and the girl flew around, with
enthusiasm, and snatched rag after rag from a tall something in the
corner, and presently there stood the clay statue, life size--a graceful
girlish creature, nude to the waist, and holding up a single garment
with one hand the expression attempted being a modified scare--she was
interrupted when about to enter the bath.
Then this young wife posed herself alongside the image and so
remained--a thing I didn't understand. But presently I did--then I said:
“O, it's you!”
“Yes,” she said, “I was the model. He has no model but me. I have stood
for this many and many an hour--and you can't think how it does tire
one! But I don't mind it. He works all day at the shop; and then, nights
and Sundays he works on his statue as long as I can keep up.”
She got a big chisel, to use as a lever, and between us we managed to
twist the pedestal round and round, so as to afford a view of the statue
from all points. Well, sir, it was perfectly charming, this girl's
innocence and purity---exhibiting her naked self, as it were, to a
stranger and alone, and never once dreaming that there was the slightest
indelicacy about the matter. And so there wasn't; but it will be many
along day before I run across another woman who can do the like and show
no trace of self-consciousness.
Well, then we sat down, and I took a smoke, and she told me all about
her people in Massachusetts--her father is a physician and it is an old
and respectable family--(I am able to believe anything she says.) And
she told me how “Karl” is 26 years old; and how he has had passionate
longings all his life toward art, but has always been poor and obliged
to struggle for his daily bread; and how he felt sure that if he could
only have one or two lessons in--
“Lessons? Hasn't he had any lessons?”
No. He had never had a lesson.
And presently it was dinner time and “Karl” arrived--a slender young
fellow with a marvelous head and a noble eye--and he was as simple and
natural, and as beautiful in spirit as his wife was. But she had to do
the talking--mainly--there was too much thought behind his cavernous
eyes for glib speech.
I went home enchanted. Told Livy and Clara Spaulding all about the
paradise down yonder where those two enthusiasts are happy with a
yearly expense of $350. Livy and Clara went there next day and came away
enchanted. A few nights later the Gerhardts kept their promise and came
here for the evening. It was billiard night and I had company and so
was not down; but Livy and Clara became more charmed with these children
than ever.
Warner and I planned to get somebody to criticise the statue whose
judgment would be worth something. So I laid for Champney, and after two
failures I captured him and took him around, and he said “this statue
is full of faults--but it has merits enough in it to make up for
them”--whereat the young wife danced around as delighted as a child.
When we came away, Champney said, “I did not want to say too much there,
but the truth is, it seems to me an extraordinary performance for an
untrained hand. You ask if there is promise enough there to justify
the Hartford folk in going to an expense of training this young man. I
should say, yes, decidedly; but still, to make everything safe, you had
better get the judgment of a sculptor.”
Warner was in New York. I wrote him, and he said he would fetch up
Ward--which he did. Yesterday they went to the Gerhardts and spent two
hours, and Ward came away bewitched with those people and marveling
at the winning innocence of the young wife, who dropped naturally into
model-attitude beside the statue (which is stark naked from head to
heel, now--G. had removed the drapery, fearing Ward would think he was
afraid to try legs and hips) just as she has always done before.
Livy and I had two long talks with Ward yesterday evening. He spoke
strongly. He said, “if any stranger had told me that this apprentice did
not model that thing from plaster casts, I would not have believed it.”
He said “it is full of crudities, but it is full of genius, too. It is
such a statue as the man of average talent would achieve after two
years training in the schools. And the boldness of the fellow, in going
straight to nature! He is an apprentice--his work shows that, all over;
but the stuff is in him, sure. Hartford must send him to Paris--two
years; then if the promise holds good, keep him there three more--and
warn him to study, study, work, work, and keep his name out of the
papers, and neither ask for orders nor accept them when offered.”
Well, you see, that's all we wanted. After Ward was gone Livy came out
with the thing that was in her mind. She said, “Go privately and start
the Gerhardts off to Paris, and say nothing about it to any one else.”
So I tramped down this morning in the snow-storm--and there was a
stirring time. They will sail a week or ten days from now.
As I was starting out at the front door, with Gerhardt beside me and
the young wife dancing and jubilating behind, this latter cried out
impulsively, “Tell Mrs. Clemens I want to hug her--I want to hug you
both!”
I gave them my old French book and they were going to tackle the
language, straight off.
Now this letter is a secret--keep it quiet--I don't think Livy would
mind my telling you these things, but then she might, you know, for she
is a queer girl.
Yrs ever,
MARK.
Champney was J. Wells Champney, a portrait-painter of distinction;
Ward was the sculptor, J. Q. A. Ward.
The Gerhardts were presently off to Paris, well provided with means
to make their dreams reality; in due time the letters will report
them again.
The Uncle Remus tales of Joel Chandler Harris gave Mark Twain great
pleasure. He frequently read them aloud, not only at home but in
public. Finally, he wrote Harris, expressing his warm appreciation,
and mentioning one of the negro stories of his own childhood, “The
Golden Arm,” which he urged Harris to look up and add to his
collection.
“You have pinned a proud feather in Uncle-Remus's cap,” replied
Harris. “I do not know what higher honor he could have than to
appear before the Hartford public arm in arm with Mark Twain.”
He disclaimed any originality for the stories, adding, “I understand
that my relations toward Uncle Remus are similar to those that exist
between an almanac maker and the calendar.” He had not heard the
“Golden Arm” story and asked for the outlines; also for some
publishing advice, out of Mark Twain's long experience.
*****
To Joel Chandler Harris, in Atlanta:
ELMIRA, N.Y., Aug. 10.
MY DEAR MR. HARRIS,--You can argue yourself into the delusion that the
principle of life is in the stories themselves and not in their setting;
but you will save labor by stopping with that solitary convert, for he
is the only intelligent one you will bag. In reality the stories
are only alligator pears--one merely eats them for the sake of the
salad-dressing. Uncle Remus is most deftly drawn, and is a lovable and
delightful creation; he, and the little boy, and their relations with
each other, are high and fine literature, and worthy to live, for their
own sakes; and certainly the stories are not to be credited with them.
But enough of this; I seem to be proving to the man that made the
multiplication table that twice one are two.
I have been thinking, yesterday and to-day (plenty of chance to think,
as I am abed with lumbago at our little summering farm among the
solitudes of the Mountaintops,) and I have concluded that I can answer
one of your questions with full confidence--thus: Make it a subscription
book. Mighty few books that come strictly under the head of literature
will sell by subscription; but if Uncle Remus won't, the gift of
prophecy has departed out of me. When a book will sell by subscription,
it will sell two or three times as many copies as it would in the trade;
and the profit is bulkier because the retail price is greater.....
You didn't ask me for a subscription-publisher. If you had, I should
have recommended Osgood to you. He inaugurates his subscription
department with my new book in the fall.....
Now the doctor has been here and tried to interrupt my yarn about “The
Golden Arm,” but I've got through, anyway.
Of course I tell it in the negro dialect--that is necessary; but I have
not written it so, for I can't spell it in your matchless way. It is
marvelous the way you and Cable spell the negro and creole dialects.
Two grand features are lost in print: the weird wailing, the rising and
falling cadences of the wind, so easily mimicked with one's mouth; and
the impressive pauses and eloquent silences, and subdued utterances,
toward the end of the yarn (which chain the attention of the children
hand and foot, and they sit with parted lips and breathless, to be
wrenched limb from limb with the sudden and appalling “You got it”).
Old Uncle Dan'l, a slave of my uncle's' aged 60, used to tell us
children yarns every night by the kitchen fire (no other light;) and the
last yarn demanded, every night, was this one. By this time there was
but a ghastly blaze or two flickering about the back-log. We would
huddle close about the old man, and begin to shudder with the first
familiar words; and under the spell of his impressive delivery we always
fell a prey to that climax at the end when the rigid black shape in the
twilight sprang at us with a shout.
When you come to glance at the tale you will recollect it--it is as
common and familiar as the Tar Baby. Work up the atmosphere with your
customary skill and it will “go” in print.
Lumbago seems to make a body garrulous--but you'll forgive it.
Truly yours
S. L. CLEMENS
The “Golden Arm” story was one that Clemens often used in his public
readings, and was very effective as he gave it.
In his sketch, “How to Tell a Story,” it appears about as he used to
tell it. Harris, receiving the outlines of the old Missouri tale,
presently announced that he had dug up its Georgia relative, an
interesting variant, as we gather from Mark Twain's reply.
*****
To Joel Chandler Harris, in Atlanta: