M.

Howells had written that he would be glad to help out in the

reading of the proofs of Huck Finn, which book Webster by

this time had in hand. Replying to Clemens's eager and

grateful acceptance now, he wrote: “It is all perfectly true

about the generosity, unless I am going to read your proofs

from one of the shabby motives which I always find at the

bottom of my soul if I examine it.” A characteristic

utterance, though we may be permitted to believe that his

shabby motives were fewer and less shabby than those of

mankind in general.

The proofs which Howells was reading pleased him mightily.

Once, during the summer, he wrote: “if I had written half as

good a book as Huck Finn I shouldn't ask anything better

than to read the proofs; even as it is, I don't, so send

them on; they will always find me somewhere.”

This was the summer of the Blaine-Cleveland campaign. Mark

Twain, in company with many other leading men, had

mugwumped, and was supporting Cleveland. From the next

letter we gather something of the aspects of that memorable

campaign, which was one of scandal and vituperation. We

learn, too, that the young sculptor, Karl Gerhardt, having

completed a three years' study in Paris, had returned to

America a qualified artist.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Aug. 21, '84.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--This presidential campaign is too delicious for

anything. Isn't human nature the most consummate sham and lie that was

ever invented? Isn't man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all

his aspects? Man, “know thyself “--and then thou wilt despise thyself,

to a dead moral certainty. Take three quite good specimens--Hawley,

Warner, and Charley Clark. Even I do not loathe Blaine more than they

do; yet Hawley is howling for Blaine, Warner and Clark are eating their

daily crow in the paper for him, and all three will vote for him. O

Stultification, where is thy sting, O slave where is thy hickory!

I suppose you heard how a marble monument for which St. Gaudens

was pecuniarily responsible, burned down in Hartford the other day,

uninsured--for who in the world would ever think of insuring a marble

shaft in a cemetery against a fire?--and left St. Gauden out of pocket

$15,000.

It was a bad day for artists. Gerhardt finished my bust that day, and

the work was pronounced admirable by all the kin and friends; but in

putting it in plaster (or rather taking it out) next day it got ruined.

It was four or five weeks hard work gone to the dogs. The news flew, and

everybody on the farm flocked to the arbor and grouped themselves about

the wreck in a profound and moving silence--the farm-help, the

colored servants, the German nurse, the children, everybody--a silence

interrupted at wide intervals by absent-minded ejaculations wising from

unconscious breasts as the whole size of the disaster gradually worked

its way home to the realization of one spirit after another.

Some burst out with one thing, some another; the German nurse put up

her hands and said, “Oh, Schade! oh, schrecklich!” But Gerhardt said

nothing; or almost that. He couldn't word it, I suppose. But he went to

work, and by dark had everything thoroughly well under way for a fresh

start in the morning; and in three days' time had built a new bust which

was a trifle better than the old one--and to-morrow we shall put the

finishing touches on it, and it will be about as good a one as nearly

anybody can make.

Yrs Ever

MARK.

If you run across anybody who wants a bust, be sure and recommend

Gerhardt on my say-so.

But Howells was determinedly for Blaine. “I shall vote for

Blaine,” he replied. “I do not believe he is guilty of the

things they accuse him of, and I know they are not proved

against him. As for Cleveland, his private life may be no

worse than that of most men, but as an enemy of that

contemptible, hypocritical, lop-sided morality which says a

woman shall suffer all the shame of unchastity and man none,

I want to see him destroyed politically by his past. The

men who defend him would take their wives to the White House

if he were president, but if he married his concubine--'made

her an honest woman' they would not go near him. I can't

stand that.”

Certainly this was sound logic, in that day, at least. But

it left Clemens far from satisfied.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Sept. 17, '84.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Somehow I can't seem to rest quiet under the idea of

your voting for Blaine. I believe you said something about the country

and the party. Certainly allegiance to these is well; but as certainly

a man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor--the party or the

country come second to that, and never first. I don't ask you to vote at

all--I only urge you to not soil yourself by voting for Blaine.

When you wrote before, you were able to say the charges against him were

not proven. But you know now that they are proven, and it seems to

me that that bars you and all other honest and honorable men (who are

independently situated) from voting for him.

It is not necessary to vote for Cleveland; the only necessary thing

to do, as I understand it, is that a man shall keep himself clean, (by

withholding his vote for an improper man) even though the party and the

country go to destruction in consequence. It is not parties that make or

save countries or that build them to greatness--it is clean men, clean

ordinary citizens, rank and file, the masses. Clean masses are not made

by individuals standing back till the rest become clean.

As I said before, I think a man's first duty is to his own honor; not to

his country and not to his party. Don't be offended; I mean no offence.

I am not so concerned about the rest of the nation, but--well, good-bye.

Ys Ever

MARK.

There does not appear to be any further discussion of the matter

between Howells and Clemens. Their letters for a time contained no

suggestion of politics.

Perhaps Mark Twain's own political conscience was not entirely clear

in his repudiation of his party; at least we may believe from his

next letter that his Cleveland enthusiasm was qualified by a

willingness to support a Republican who would command his admiration

and honor. The idea of an eleventh-hour nomination was rather

startling, whatever its motive.

*****

To Mr. Pierce, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Oct. 22, '84.

MY DEAR MR. PIERCE,--You know, as well as I do, that the reason the

majority of republicans are going to vote for Blaine is because they

feel that they cannot help themselves. Do not you believe that if

Mr. Edmunds would consent to run for President, on the Independent

ticket--even at this late day--he might be elected?

Well, if he wouldn't consent, but should even strenuously protest

and say he wouldn't serve if elected, isn't it still wise and fair to

nominate him and vote for him? since his protest would relieve him from

all responsibility; and he couldn't surely find fault with people for

forcing a compliment upon him. And do not you believe that his name thus

compulsorily placed at the head of the Independent column would work

absolutely certain defeat to Blain and save the country's honor?

Politicians often carry a victory by springing some disgraceful and

rascally mine under the feet of the adversary at the eleventh hour;

would it not be wholesome to vary this thing for once and spring as

formidable a mine of a better sort under the enemy's works?

If Edmunds's name were put up, I would vote for him in the teeth of all

the protesting and blaspheming he could do in a month; and there are

lots of others who would do likewise.

If this notion is not a foolish and wicked one, won't you just consult

with some chief Independents, and see if they won't call a sudden

convention and whoop the thing through? To nominate Edmunds the 1st of

November, would be soon enough, wouldn't it?

With kindest regards to you and the Aldriches,

Yr Truly

S. L. CLEMENS.

Clemens and Cable set out on their reading-tour in November.

They were a curiously-assorted pair: Cable was of orthodox

religion, exact as to habits, neat, prim, all that Clemens

was not. In the beginning Cable undertook to read the Bible

aloud to Clemens each evening, but this part of the day's

program was presently omitted by request. If they spent

Sunday in a town, Cable was up bright and early visiting the

various churches and Sunday-schools, while Mark Twain

remained at the hotel, in bed, reading or asleep.

XXV. THE GREAT YEAR OF 1885. CLEMENS AND CABLE. PUBLICATION OF “HUCK

FINN.” THE GRANT MEMOIRS. MARK TWAIN AT FIFTY.

The year 1885 was in some respects the most important, certainly the

most pleasantly exciting, in Mark Twain's life. It was the year in

which he entered fully into the publishing business and launched one

of the most spectacular of all publishing adventures, The Personal

Memoirs of General U. S. Grant. Clemens had not intended to do

general publishing when he arranged with Webster to become

sales-agent for the Mississippi book, and later general agent for

Huck Finn's adventures; he had intended only to handle his own

books, because he was pretty thoroughly dissatisfied with other

publishing arrangements. Even the Library of Humor, which Howells,

with Clark, of the Courant, had put together for him, he left with

Osgood until that publisher failed, during the spring of 1885.

Certainly he never dreamed of undertaking anything of the

proportions of the Grant book.

He had always believed that Grant could make a book. More than

once, when they had met, he had urged the General to prepare his

memoirs for publication. Howells, in his 'My Mark Twain', tells of

going with Clemens to see Grant, then a member of the ill-fated firm

of Grant and Ward, and how they lunched on beans, bacon and coffee

brought in from a near-by restaurant. It was while they were eating

this soldier fare that Clemens--very likely abetted by Howells

--especially urged the great commander to prepare his memoirs. But

Grant had become a financier, as he believed, and the prospect of

literary earnings, however large, did not appeal to him.

Furthermore, he was convinced that he was without literary ability

and that a book by him would prove a failure.

But then, by and by, came a failure more disastrous than anything he

had foreseen--the downfall of his firm through the Napoleonic

rascality of Ward. General Grant was utterly ruined; he was left

without income and apparently without the means of earning one. It

was the period when the great War Series was appeasing in the

Century Magazine. General Grant, hard-pressed, was induced by the

editors to prepare one or more articles, and, finding that he could

write them, became interested in the idea of a book. It is

unnecessary to repeat here the story of how the publication of this

important work passed into the hands of Mark Twain; that is to say,

the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co., the details having been fully

given elsewhere.--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap. cliv.]--

We will now return for the moment to other matters, as reported in

order by the letters. Clemens and Cable had continued their

reading-tour into Canada, and in February found themselves in

Montreal. Here they were invited by the Toque Bleue Snow-shoe Club

to join in one of their weekly excursions across Mt. Royal. They

could not go, and the reasons given by Mark Twain are not without

interest. The letter is to Mr. George Iles, author of Flame,

Electricity, and the Camera, and many other useful works.

*****

To George Iles, far the Toque Blew Snow-shoe Club, Montreal:

DETROIT, February 12, 1885.

Midnight, P.S.

MY DEAR ILES,--I got your other telegram a while ago, and answered it,

explaining that I get only a couple of hours in the middle of the day

for social life. I know it doesn't seem rational that a man should have

to lie abed all day in order to be rested and equipped for talking an

hour at night, and yet in my case and Cable's it is so. Unless I get

a great deal of rest, a ghastly dulness settles down upon me on the

platform, and turns my performance into work, and hard work, whereas it

ought always to be pastime, recreation, solid enjoyment. Usually it is

just this latter, but that is because I take my rest faithfully, and

prepare myself to do my duty by my audience.

I am the obliged and appreciative servant of my brethren of the

Snow-shoe Club, and nothing in the world would delight me more than to

come to their house without naming time or terms on my own part--but

you see how it is. My cast iron duty is to my audience--it leaves me no

liberty and no option.

With kindest regards to the Club, and to you,