MY DEAR MR. HARRIS,--I was very sure you would run across that Story
somewhere, and am glad you have. A Drummond light--no, I mean a Brush
light--is thrown upon the negro estimate of values by his willingness
to risk his soul and his mighty peace forever for the sake of a silver
sev'm-punce. And this form of the story seems rather nearer the true
field-hand standard than that achieved by my Florida, Mo., negroes with
their sumptuous arm of solid gold.
I judge you haven't received my new book yet--however, you will in a day
or two. Meantime you must not take it ill if I drop Osgood a hint about
your proposed story of slave life.....
When you come north I wish you would drop me a line and then follow
it in person and give me a day or two at our house in Hartford. If you
will, I will snatch Osgood down from Boston, and you won't have to go
there at all unless you want to. Please to bear this strictly in mind,
and don't forget it.
Sincerely yours
S. L. CLEMENS.
Charles Warren Stoddard, to whom the next letter is written, was one
of the old California literary crowd, a graceful writer of verse and
prose, never quite arriving at the success believed by his friends
to be his due. He was a gentle, irresponsible soul, well loved by
all who knew him, and always, by one or another, provided against
want. The reader may remember that during Mark Twain's great
lecture engagement in London, winter of 1873-74, Stoddard lived with
him, acting as his secretary. At a later period in his life he
lived for several years with the great telephone magnate, Theodore
N. Vail. At the time of this letter, Stoddard had decided that in
the warm light and comfort of the Sandwich Islands he could survive
on his literary earnings.
*****
To Charles Warren Stoddard, in the Sandwich Islands:
HARTFORD, Oct. 26 '81.
MY DEAR CHARLIE,--Now what have I ever done to you that you should not
only slide off to Heaven before you have earned a right to go, but must
add the gratuitous villainy of informing me of it?...
The house is full of carpenters and decorators; whereas, what we really
need here, is an incendiary. If the house would only burn down, we would
pack up the cubs and fly to the isles of the blest, and shut ourselves
up in the healing solitudes of the crater of Haleakala and get a good
rest; for the mails do not intrude there, nor yet the telephone and the
telegraph. And after resting, we would come down the mountain a piece
and board with a godly, breech-clouted native, and eat poi and dirt and
give thanks to whom all thanks belong, for these privileges, and never
house-keep any more.
I think my wife would be twice as strong as she is, but for this wearing
and wearying slavery of house-keeping. However, she thinks she must
submit to it for the sake of the children; whereas, I have always had
a tenderness for parents too, so, for her sake and mine, I sigh for the
incendiary. When the evening comes and the gas is lit and the wear and
tear of life ceases, we want to keep house always; but next morning we
wish, once more, that we were free and irresponsible boarders.
Work?--one can't you know, to any purpose. I don't really get anything
done worth speaking of, except during the three or four months that we
are away in the Summer. I wish the Summer were seven years long. I
keep three or four books on the stocks all the time, but I seldom add a
satisfactory chapter to one of them at home. Yes, and it is all because
my time is taken up with answering the letters of strangers. It can't
be done through a short hand amanuensis--I've tried that--it wouldn't
work--I couldn't learn to dictate. What does possess strangers to write
so many letters? I never could find that out. However, I suppose I did
it myself when I was a stranger. But I will never do it again.
Maybe you think I am not happy? the very thing that gravels me is that
I am. I don't want to be happy when I can't work; I am resolved that
hereafter I won't be. What I have always longed for, was the privilege
of living forever away up on one of those mountains in the Sandwich
Islands overlooking the sea.
Yours ever
MARK.
That magazine article of yours was mighty good: up to your very best I
think. I enclose a book review written by Howells.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Oct. 26 '81.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I am delighted with your review, and so is Mrs.
Clemens. What you have said, there, will convince anybody that reads it;
a body cannot help being convinced by it. That is the kind of a review
to have; the doubtful man; even the prejudiced man, is persuaded and
succumbs.
What a queer blunder that was, about the baronet. I can't quite see how
I ever made it. There was an opulent abundance of things I didn't know;
and consequently no need to trench upon the vest-pocketful of things I
did know, to get material for a blunder.
Charley Warren Stoddard has gone to the Sandwich Islands permanently.
Lucky devil. It is the only supremely delightful place on earth. It does
seem that the more advantage a body doesn't earn, here, the more of them
God throws at his head. This fellow's postal card has set the vision of
those gracious islands before my mind, again, with not a leaf withered,
nor a rainbow vanished, nor a sun-flash missing from the waves, and now
it will be months, I reckon, before I can drive it away again. It is
beautiful company, but it makes one restless and dissatisfied.
With love and thanks,
Yrs ever,
MARK.
The review mentioned in this letter was of The Prince and the
Pauper. What the queer “blunder” about the baronet was, the present
writer confesses he does not know; but perhaps a careful reader
could find it, at least in the early edition; very likely it was
corrected without loss of time.
Clemens now and then found it necessary to pay a visit to Canada in
the effort to protect his copyright. He usually had a grand time on
these trips, being lavishly entertained by the Canadian literary
fraternity. In November, 1881, he made one of these journeys in the
interest of The Prince and the Pauper, this time with Osgood, who
was now his publisher. In letters written home we get a hint of his
diversions. The Monsieur Frechette mentioned was a Canadian poet of
considerable distinction. “Clara” was Miss Clara Spaulding, of
Elmira, who had accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Clemens to Europe in 1873,
and again in 1878. Later she became Mrs. John B. Staachfield, of
New York City. Her name has already appeared in these letters many
times.
*****
To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:
MONTREAL, Nov. 28 '81.
Livy darling, you and Clara ought to have been at breakfast in the great
dining room this morning. English female faces, distinctive English
costumes, strange and marvelous English gaits--and yet such honest,
honorable, clean-souled countenances, just as these English women almost
always have, you know. Right away--
But they've come to take me to the top of Mount Royal, it being a cold,
dry, sunny, magnificent day. Going in a sleigh.
Yours lovingly,
SAML.
*****
To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:
MONTREAL, Sunday, November 27, 1881.
Livy dear, a mouse kept me awake last night till 3 or 4 o'clock--so I am
lying abed this morning. I would not give sixpence to be out yonder in
the storm, although it is only snow.
[The above paragraph is written in the form of a rebus illustrated with
various sketches.]
There--that's for the children--was not sure that they could read
writing; especially jean, who is strangely ignorant in some things.
I can not only look out upon the beautiful snow-storm, past the vigorous
blaze of my fire; and upon the snow-veiled buildings which I have
sketched; and upon the churchward drifting umbrellas; and upon the
buffalo-clad cabmen stamping their feet and thrashing their arms on the
corner yonder: but I also look out upon the spot where the first white
men stood, in the neighborhood of four hundred years ago, admiring the
mighty stretch of leafy solitudes, and being admired and marveled at by
an eager multitude of naked savages. The discoverer of this region, and
namer of it, Jacques Cartier, has a square named for him in the city. I
wish you were here; you would enjoy your birthday, I think.
I hoped for a letter, and thought I had one when the mail was handed in,
a minute ago, but it was only that note from Sylvester Baxter. You must
write--do you hear?--or I will be remiss myself.
Give my love and a kiss to the children, and ask them to give you my
love and a kiss from