XXXIII. LETTERS, 1893, TO MR. HALL, MRS. CLEMENS, AND OTHERS. FLORENCE.
BUSINESS TROUBLES. “PUDD'NHEAD WILSON.” “JOAN OF ARC.” AT THE PLAYERS,
NEW YORK.
The reader may have suspected that young Mr. Hall in New York was having
his troubles. He was by this time one-third owner in the business of
Charles L. Webster & Co., as well as its general manager. The business
had been drained of its capital one way and another-partly by the
publication of unprofitable books; partly by the earlier demands of
the typesetter, but more than all by the manufacturing cost and agents'
commissions demanded by L. A. L.; that is to say, the eleven large
volumes constituting the Library of American Literature, which Webster
had undertaken to place in a million American homes. There was plenty
of sale for it--indeed, that was just the trouble; for it was sold on
payments--small monthly payments--while the cost of manufacture and
the liberal agents' commissions were cash items, and it would require a
considerable period before the dribble of collections would swell into
a tide large enough to satisfy the steady outflow of expense. A sale
of twenty-five sets a day meant prosperity on paper, but unless capital
could be raised from some other source to make and market those books
through a period of months, perhaps even years, to come, it meant
bankruptcy in reality. It was Hall's job, with Clemens to back him, to
keep their ship afloat on these steadily ebbing financial waters. It
was also Hall's affair to keep Mark Twain cheerful, to look pleasant
himself, and to show how they were steadily getting rich because orders
were pouring in, though a cloud that resembled bankruptcy loomed always
a little higher upon the horizon. If Hall had not been young and an
optimist, he would have been frightened out of his boots early in the
game. As it was, he made a brave steady fight, kept as cheerful and
stiff an upper lip as possible, always hoping that something would
happen--some grand sale of his other books, some unexpected inflow from
the type-setter interests--anything that would sustain his ship until
the L. A. L. tide should turn and float it into safety.
Clemens had faith in Hall and was fond of him. He never found fault with
him; he tried to accept his encouraging reports at their face value.
He lent the firm every dollar of his literary earnings not absolutely
needed for the family's support; he signed new notes; he allowed Mrs.
Clemens to put in such remnants of her patrimony as the type-setter had
spared.
The situation in 1893 was about as here outlined. The letters to Hall of
that year are frequent and carry along the story. To any who had formed
the idea that Mark Twain was irascible, exacting, and faultfinding, they
will perhaps be a revelation.
*****
To Fred J. Hall, in New York:
FLORENCE, Jan. 1, '93.
DEAR MR. HALL,--Yours of Dec. 19 is to hand, and Mrs. Clemens is deeply
distressed, for she thinks I have been blaming you or finding fault with
you about something. But most surely that cannot be. I tell her that
although I am prone to write hasty and regrettable things to other
people, I am not a bit likely to write such things to you. I can't
believe I have done anything so ungrateful. If I have, pile coals of
fire on my head, for I deserve it!
I wonder if my letter of credit isn't an encumbrance? Do you have
to deposit the whole amount it calls for? If that is so, it is an
encumbrance, and we must withdraw it and take the money out of soak. I
have never made drafts upon it except when compelled, because I thought
you deposited nothing against it, and only had to put up money that I
drew upon it; that therefore the less I drew the easier it would be for
you.
I am dreadfully sorry I didn't know it would be a help to you to let my
monthly check pass over a couple of months. I could have stood that by
drawing what is left of Mrs. Clemens's letter of credit, and we would
have done it cheerfully.
I will write Whitmore to send you the “Century” check for $1,000, and
you can collect Mrs. Dodge's $2,000 (Whitmore has power of attorney
which I think will enable him to endorse it over to you in my name.)
If you need that $3,000 put it in the business and use it, and send
Whitmore the Company's note for a year. If you don't need it, turn it
over to Mr. Halsey and let him invest it for me.
I've a mighty poor financial head, and I may be all wrong--but tell me
if I am wrong in supposing that in lending my own firm money at 6 per
cent I pay 4 of it myself and so really get only a per cent? Now don't
laugh if that is stupid.
Of course my friend declined to buy a quarter interest in the L. A. L.
for $200,000. I judged he would. I hoped he would offer $100,000, but
he didn't. If the cholera breaks out in America, a few months hence,
we can't borrow or sell; but if it doesn't we must try hard to raise
$100,000. I wish we could do it before there is a cholera scare.
I have been in bed two or three days with a cold, but I got up an hour
ago, and I believe I am all right again.
How I wish I had appreciated the need of $100,000 when I was in New York
last summer! I would have tried my best to raise it. It would make us
able to stand 1,000 sets of L. A. L. per month, but not any more, I
guess.
You have done magnificently with the business, and we must raise the
money somehow, to enable you to reap the reward of all that labor.