Yours
S. L. C.
Clemens reached New York on the 3d of April and made a trip to
Chicago, but accomplished nothing, except to visit the World's Fair
and be laid up with a severe cold. The machine situation had not
progressed. The financial stringency of 1893 had brought everything
to a standstill. The New York bank would advance Webster & Co. no
more money. So disturbed were his affairs, so disordered was
everything, that sometimes he felt himself as one walking amid
unrealities. A fragment of a letter to Mrs. Crane conveys this:
“I dreamed I was born and grew up and was a pilot on the Mississippi
and a miner and a journalist in Nevada and a pilgrim in the Quaker
City, and had a wife and children and went to live in a villa at
Florence--and this dream goes on and on and sometimes seems so real
that I almost believe it is real. I wonder if it is? But there is
no way to tell, for if one applies tests they would be part of the
dream, too, and so would simply aid the deceit. I wish I knew
whether it is a dream or real.”
He saw Warner, briefly, in America; also Howells, now living in New
York, but he had little time for visiting. On May 13th he sailed
again for Europe on the Kaiser Wilhelm II. On the night before
sailing he sent Howells a good-by word.
*****
To W. D. Howells, in New York City:
MURRAY HILL HOTEL, NEW YORE, May 12, 1893.
Midnight.
DEAR HOWELLS--I am so sorry I missed you.
I am very glad to have that book for sea entertainment, and I thank you
ever so much for it.
I've had a little visit with Warner at last; I was getting afraid I
wasn't going to have a chance to see him at all. I forgot to tell you
how thoroughly I enjoyed your account of the country printing office,
and how true it all was and how intimately recognizable in all its
details. But Warner was full of delight over it, and that reminded me,
and I am glad, for I wanted to speak of it.
You have given me a book; Annie Trumbull has sent me her book; I bought
a couple of books; Mr. Hall gave me a choice German book; Laflan gave me
two bottles of whisky and a box of cigars--I go to sea nobly equipped.
Good-bye and all good fortune attend you and yours--and upon you all I
leave my benediction.