The letter that follows is to another of his old pilot friends, one
who was also a schoolmate, Will Bowen, of Hannibal. There is today
no means of knowing the occasion upon which this letter was written,
but it does not matter; it is the letter itself that is of chief
value.
*****
To Will Bowen, in Hannibal, Mo.:
HARTFORD, Nov 4, '88.
DEAR WILL,--I received your letter yesterday evening, just as I was
starting out of town to attend a wedding, and so my mind was privately
busy, all the evening, in the midst of the maelstrom of chat and chaff
and laughter, with the sort of reflections which create themselves,
examine themselves, and continue themselves, unaffected by
surroundings--unaffected, that is understood, by the surroundings, but
not uninfluenced by them. Here was the near presence of the two supreme
events of life: marriage, which is the beginning of life, and death
which is the end of it. I found myself seeking chances to shirk into
corners where I might think, undisturbed; and the most I got out of my
thought, was this: both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one
promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it. A long procession of
people filed through my mind--people whom you and I knew so many years
ago--so many centuries ago, it seems like-and these ancient dead marched
to the soft marriage music of a band concealed in some remote room of
the house; and the contented music and the dreaming shades seemed in
right accord with each other, and fitting. Nobody else knew that a
procession of the dead was passing though this noisy swarm of the
living, but there it was, and to me there was nothing uncanny about it;
Rio, they were welcome faces to me. I would have liked to bring up
every creature we knew in those days--even the dumb animals--it would be
bathing in the fabled Fountain of Youth.
We all feel your deep trouble with you; and we would hope, if we might,
but your words deny us that privilege. To die one's self is a thing
that must be easy, and of light consequence, but to lose a part of one's
self--well, we know how deep that pang goes, we who have suffered that
disaster, received that wound which cannot heal.
Sincerely your friend
S. L. CLEMENS.
His next is of quite a different nature. Evidently the typesetting
conditions had alarmed Orion, and he was undertaking some economies
with a view of retrenchment. Orion was always reducing economy to
science. Once, at an earlier date, he recorded that he had figured
his personal living expenses down to sixty cents a week, but
inasmuch as he was then, by his own confession, unable to earn the
sixty cents, this particular economy was wasted. Orion was a trial,
certainly, and the explosion that follows was not without excuse.
Furthermore, it was not as bad as it sounds. Mark Twain's rages
always had an element of humor in them, a fact which no one more
than Orion himself would appreciate. He preserved this letter,
quietly noting on the envelope, “Letter from Sam, about ma's nurse.”
Letter to Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa: