The reference in the next to the “closing sentence” in a letter
written by Howells to Clemens about this time, refers to a
heart-broken utterance of the former concerning his daughter
Winnie, who had died some time before. She had been a gentle
talented girl, but never of robust health. Her death had followed
a long period of gradual decline.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Judy 13, '89.
DEAR HOWELLS,--I came on from Elmira a day or two ago, where I left
a house of mourning. Mr. Crane died, after ten months of pain and two
whole days of dying, at the farm on the hill, the 3rd inst: A man who
had always hoped for a swift death. Mrs. Crane and Mrs. Clemens and the
children were in a gloom which brought back to me the days of nineteen
years ago, when Mr. Langdon died. It is heart-breaking to see Mrs.
Crane. Many a time, in the past ten days, the sight of her has reminded
me, with a pang, of the desolation which uttered itself in the closing
sentence of your last letter to me. I do see that there is an argument
against suicide: the grief of the worshipers left behind; the awful
famine in their hearts, these are too costly terms for the release.
I shall be here ten days yet, and all alone: nobody in the house but the
servants. Can't Mrs. Howells spare you to me? Can't you come and
stay with me? The house is cool and pleasant; your work will not be
interrupted; we will keep to ourselves and let the rest of the world do
the same; you can have your choice of three bedrooms, and you will find
the Children's schoolroom (which was built for my study,) the perfection
of a retired and silent den for work. There isn't a fly or a mosquito on
the estate. Come--say you will.
With kindest regards to Mrs. Howells, and Pilla and John,
Yours Ever
MARK.
Howells was more hopeful. He wrote: “I read something in a strange book,
The Physical Theory of Another Life, that consoles a little; namely, we
see and feel the power of Deity in such fullness that we ought to infer
the infinite justice and Goodness which we do not see or feel.” And a
few days later, he wrote: “I would rather see and talk with you than any
other man in the world outside my own blood.”
A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court was brought to an end that
year and given to the artist and printer. Dan Beard was selected for the
drawings, and was given a free hand, as the next letter shows.
*****
To Fred J. Hall, Manager Charles L. Webster & Co.:
[Charles L. Webster, owing to poor health, had by this time retired from
the firm.]
ELMIRA, July 20, '89.
DEAR MR. HALL,--Upon reflection--thus: tell Beard to obey his own
inspiration, and when he sees a picture in his mind put that picture on
paper, be it humorous or be it serious. I want his genius to be wholly
unhampered, I shan't have fears as to the result. They will be better
pictures than if I mixed in and tried to give him points on his own
trade.
Send this note and he'll understand.
Yr
S. L. C.
Clemens had made a good choice in selecting Beard for the
illustrations. He was well qualified for the work, and being of a
socialistic turn of mind put his whole soul into it. When the
drawings were completed, Clemens wrote: “Hold me under permanent
obligations. What luck it was to find you! There are hundreds of
artists that could illustrate any other book of mine, but there was
only one who could illustrate this one. Yes, it was a fortunate
hour that I went netting for lightning bugs and caught a meteor.
Live forever!”
Clemens, of course, was anxious for Howells to read The Yankee, and
Mrs. Clemens particularly so. Her eyes were giving her trouble that
summer, so that she could not read the MS. for herself, and she had
grave doubts as to some of its chapters. It may be said here that
the book to-day might have been better if Mrs. Clemens had been able
to read it. Howells was a peerless critic, but the revolutionary
subject-matter of the book so delighted him that he was perhaps
somewhat blinded to its literary defects. However, this is
premature. Howells did not at once see the story. He had promised
to come to Hartford, but wrote that trivial matters had made his
visit impossible. From the next letter we get the situation at this
time. The “Mr. Church” mentioned was Frederick S. Church, the
well-known artist.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, July 24, '89.
DEAR HOWELLS,--I, too, was as sorry as I could be; yes, and desperately
disappointed. I even did a heroic thing: shipped my book off to New York
lest I should forget hospitality and embitter your visit with it. Not
that I think you wouldn't like to read it, for I think you would;
but not on a holiday that's not the time. I see how you were
situated--another familiarity of Providence and wholly wanton
intrusion--and of course we could not help ourselves. Well, just
think of it: a while ago, while Providence's attention was absorbed in
disordering some time-tables so as to break up a trip of mine to Mr.
Church's on the Hudson, that Johnstown dam got loose. I swear I was
afraid to pray, for fear I should laugh. Well, I'm not going to despair;
we'll manage a meet yet.
I expect to go to Hartford again in August and maybe remain till I have
to come back here and fetch the family. And, along there in August, some
time, you let on that you are going to Mexico, and I will let on that I
am going to Spitzbergen, and then under cover of this clever stratagem
we will glide from the trains at Worcester and have a time. I have
noticed that Providence is indifferent about Mexico and Spitzbergen.
Ys Ever
MARK.
Possibly Mark Twain was not particularly anxious that Howells should
see his MS., fearing that he might lay a ruthless hand on some of
his more violent fulminations and wild fancies. However this may
be, further postponement was soon at an end. Mrs. Clemens's eyes
troubled her and would not permit her to read, so she requested that
the Yankee be passed upon by soberminded critics, such as Howells
and Edmund Clarence Stedman. Howells wrote that even if he hadn't
wanted to read the book for its own sake, or for the author's sake,
he would still want to do it for Mrs. Clemens's. Whereupon the
proofs were started in his direction.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Aug. 24, '89.
DEAR HOWELLS,--If you should be moved to speak of my book in the Study,
I shall be glad and proud--and the sooner it gets in, the better for the
book; though I don't suppose you can get it in earlier than the November
number--why, no, you can't get it in till a month later than that. Well,
anyway I don't think I'll send out any other press copy--except perhaps
to Stedman. I'm not writing for those parties who miscall themselves
critics, and I don't care to have them paw the book at all. It's my
swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently, and I wish to pass
to the cemetery unclodded.
I judge that the proofs have begun to reach you about this time, as I
had some (though not revises,) this morning. I'm sure I'm going to be
charmed with Beard's pictures. Observe his nice take-off of Middle-Age
art-dinner-table scene.
Ys sincerely
MARK.
Howells's approval of the Yankee came almost in the form of exultant
shouts, one after reading each batch of proof. First he wrote:
“It's charming, original, wonderful! good in fancy and sound to the
core in morals.” And again, “It's a mighty great book, and it makes
my heart burn with wrath. It seems God did not forget to put a soul
into you. He shuts most literary men off with a brain, merely.”
Then, a few days later: “The book is glorious--simply noble; what
masses of virgin truth never touched in print before!” and, finally,
“Last night I read your last chapter. As Stedman says of the whole
book, it's titanic.”
*****
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Sept. 22, '89.
DEAR HOWELLS,--It is immensely good of you to grind through that stuff
for me; but it gives peace to Mrs. Clemens's soul; and I am as grateful
to you as a body can be. I am glad you approve of what I say about the
French Revolution. Few people will. It is odd that even to this day
Americans still observe that immortal benefaction through English and
other monarchical eyes, and have no shred of an opinion about it that
they didn't get at second-hand.
Next to the 4th of July and its results, it was the noblest and the
holiest thing and the most precious that ever happened in this earth.
And its gracious work is not done yet--not anywhere in the remote
neighborhood of it.
Don't trouble to send me all the proofs; send me the pages with your
corrections on them, and waste-basket the rest. We issue the book Dec.
10; consequently a notice that appears Dec. 20 will be just in good
time.
I am waiting to see your Study set a fashion in criticism. When that
happens--as please God it must--consider that if you lived three
centuries you couldn't do a more valuable work for this country, or a
humaner.
As a rule a critic's dissent merely enrages, and so does no good; but
by the new art which you use, your dissent must be as welcome as your
approval, and as valuable. I do not know what the secret of it is,
unless it is your attitude--man courteously reasoning with man and
brother, in place of the worn and wearisome critical attitude of all
this long time--superior being lecturing a boy.
Well, my book is written--let it go. But if it were only to write over
again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and
they keep multiplying and multiplying; but now they can't ever be said.
And besides, they would require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell.
Ys Ever
MARK.
The type-setting machine began to loom large in the background.
Clemens believed it perfected by this time. Paige had got it
together again and it was running steadily--or approximately so
--setting type at a marvelous speed and with perfect accuracy. In
time an expert operator would be able to set as high as eight
thousand ems per hour, or about ten times as much as a good
compositor could set and distribute by hand. Those who saw it were
convinced--most of them--that the type-setting problem was solved by
this great mechanical miracle. If there were any who doubted, it
was because of its marvelously minute accuracy which the others only
admired. Such accuracy, it was sometimes whispered, required
absolutely perfect adjustment, and what would happen when the great
inventor--“the poet in steel,” as Clemens once called him--was no
longer at hand to supervise and to correct the slightest variation.
But no such breath of doubt came to Mark Twain; he believed the
machine as reliable as a constellation.
But now there was need of capital to manufacture and market the
wonder. Clemens, casting about in his mind, remembered Senator
Jones, of Nevada, a man of great wealth, and his old friend, Joe
Goodman, of Nevada, in whom Jones had unlimited confidence. He
wrote to Goodman, and in this letter we get a pretty full exposition
of the whole matter as it stood in the fall of 1889. We note in
this communication that Clemens says that he has been at the machine
three years and seven months, but this was only the period during
which he had spent the regular monthly sum of three thousand
dollars. His interest in the invention had begun as far back as
1880.
*****
To Joseph T. Goodman, in Nevada:
Private. HARTFORD, Oct. 7, '89.
DEAR JOE,--I had a letter from Aleck Badlam day before yesterday, and
in answering him I mentioned a matter which I asked him to consider
a secret except to you and John McComb,--[This is Col. McComb, of
the Alta-California, who had sent Mark Twain on the Quaker City
excursion]--as I am not ready yet to get into the newspapers.
I have come near writing you about this matter several times, but it
wasn't ripe, and I waited. It is ripe, now. It is a type-setting machine
which I undertook to build for the inventor (for a consideration). I
have been at it three years and seven months without losing a day, at a
cost of $3,000 a month, and in so private a way that Hartford has known
nothing about it. Indeed only a dozen men have known of the matter. I
have reported progress from time to time to the proprietors of the N. Y.
Sun, Herald, Times, World, Harper Brothers and John F. Trow; also to the
proprietors of the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe. Three years ago I
asked all these people to squelch their frantic desire to load up their
offices with the Mergenthaler (N. Y. Tribune) machine, and wait for mine
and then choose between the two. They have waited--with no very gaudy
patience--but still they have waited; and I could prove to them to-day
that they have not lost anything by it. But I reserve the proof for the
present--except in the case of the N. Y. Herald; I sent an invitation
there the other day--a courtesy due a paper which ordered $240,000 worth
of our machines long ago when it was still in a crude condition. The
Herald has ordered its foreman to come up here next Thursday; but that
is the only invitation which will go out for some time yet.
The machine was finished several weeks ago, and has been running ever
since in the machine shop. It is a magnificent creature of steel, all of
Pratt & Whitney's super-best workmanship, and as nicely adjusted and as
accurate as a watch. In construction it is as elaborate and complex
as that machine which it ranks next to, by every right--Man--and in
performance it is as simple and sure.
Anybody can set type on it who can read--and can do it after only 15
minutes' instruction. The operator does not need to leave his seat at
the keyboard; for the reason that he is not required to do anything
but strike the keys and set type--merely one function; the spacing,
justifying, emptying into the galley, and distributing of dead matter is
all done by the machine without anybody's help--four functions.
The ease with which a cub can learn is surprising. Day before yesterday
I saw our newest cub set, perfectly space and perfectly justify 2,150
ems of solid nonpareil in an hour and distribute the like amount in the
same hour--and six hours previously he had never seen the machine or
its keyboard. It was a good hour's work for 3-year veterans on the other
type-setting machines to do. We have 3 cubs. The dean of the trio is a
school youth of 18. Yesterday morning he had been an apprentice on the
machine 16 working days (8-hour days); and we speeded him to see what he
could do in an hour. In the hour he set 5,900 ems solid nonpareil, and
the machine perfectly spaced and justified it, and of course distributed
the like amount in the same hour. Considering that a good fair
compositor sets 700 and distributes 700 in the one hour, this boy did
the work of about 8 x a compositors in that hour. This fact sends all
other type-setting machines a thousand miles to the rear, and the best
of them will never be heard of again after we publicly exhibit in New
York.
We shall put on 3 more cubs. We have one school boy and two compositors,
now,--and we think of putting on a type writer, a stenographer, and
perhaps a shoemaker, to show that no special gifts or training are
required with this machine. We shall train these beginners two or three
months--or until some one of them gets up to 7,000 an hour--then we will
show up in New York and run the machine 24 hours a day 7 days in the
week, for several months--to prove that this is a machine which will
never get out of order or cause delay, and can stand anything an anvil
can stand. You know there is no other typesetting machine that can
run two hours on a stretch without causing trouble and delay with its
incurable caprices.
We own the whole field--every inch of it--and nothing can dislodge us.
Now then, above is my preachment, and here follows the reason and
purpose of it. I want you to run over here, roost over the machine a
week and satisfy yourself, and then go to John P. Jones or to whom you
please, and sell me a hundred thousand dollars' worth of this property
and take ten per cent in cash or the “property” for your trouble--the
latter, if you are wise, because the price I ask is a long way short of
the value.
What I call “property” is this. A small part of my ownership consists of
a royalty of $500 on every machine marketed under the American patents.
My selling-terms are, a permanent royalty of one dollar on every
American-marketed machine for a thousand dollars cash to me in hand
paid. We shan't market any fewer than 5,000 machines in 15 years--a
return of fifteen thousand dollars for one thousand. A royalty is better
than stock, in one way--it must be paid, every six months, rain or
shine; it is a debt, and must be paid before dividends are declared. By
and by, when we become a stock company I shall buy these royalties back
for stock if I can get them for anything like reasonable terms.
I have never borrowed a penny to use on the machine, and never sold a
penny's worth of the property until the machine was entirely finished
and proven by the severest tests to be what she started out to
be--perfect, permanent, and occupying the position, as regards all
kindred machines, which the City of Paris occupies as regards the
canvas-backs of the mercantile marine.
It is my purpose to sell two hundred dollars of my royalties at the
above price during the next two months and keep the other $300.
Mrs. Clemens begs Mrs. Goodman to come with you, and asks pardon for
not writing the message herself--which would be a pathetically-welcome
spectacle to me; for I have been her amanuensis for 8 months, now, since
her eyes failed her. Yours as always