P. S. No monthly report for many months.
Those who are old enough to remember the summer of 1893 may recall
it as a black financial season. Banks were denying credit,
businesses were forced to the wall. It was a poor time to float any
costly enterprise. The Chicago company who was trying to build the
machines made little progress. The book business everywhere was
bad. In a brief note following the foregoing letters Clemens wrote
Hall:
“It is now past the middle of July and no cablegram to say the
machine is finished. We are afraid you are having miserable days
and worried nights, and we sincerely wish we could relieve you, but
it is all black with us and we don't know any helpful thing to say
or do.”
He inclosed some kind of manuscript proposition for John Brisben
Walker, of the Cosmopolitan, with the comment: “It is my ingenious
scheme to protect the family against the alms-house for one more
year--and after that--well, goodness knows! I have never felt so
desperate in my life--and good reason, for I haven't got a penny to
my name, and Mrs. Clemens hasn't enough laid up with Langdon to keep
us two months.”
It was like Mark Twain, in the midst of all this turmoil, to project
an entirely new enterprise; his busy mind was always visioning
success in unusual undertakings, regardless of immediate conditions
and the steps necessary to achievement.
*****
To Fred J. Hall, in New York:
July 26, '93.
DEAR MR. HALL,--..... I hope the machine will be finished this month;
but it took me four years and cost me $100,000 to finish the other
machine after it was apparently entirely complete and setting type like
a house-afire.
I wonder what they call “finished.” After it is absolutely perfect it
can't go into a printing-office until it has had a month's wear, running
night and day, to get the bearings smooth, I judge.
I may be able to run over about mid-October. Then if I find you relieved
of L. A. L. we will start a magazine inexpensive, and of an entirely
unique sort. Arthur Stedman and his father editors of it. Arthur could
do all the work, merely submitting it to his father for approval.
The first number should pay--and all subsequent ones--25 cents a number.
Cost of first number (20,000 copies) $2,000. Give most of them away,
sell the rest. Advertising and other expenses--cost unknown. Send one to
all newspapers--it would get a notice--favorable, too.
But we cannot undertake it until L. A. L, is out of the way. With our
hands free and some capital to spare, we could make it hum.
Where is the Shelley article? If you have it on hand, keep it and I will
presently tell you what to do with it.
Don't forget to tell me.
Yours Sincerely
S. L. C.
The Shelley article mentioned in this letter was the “Defense of
Harriet Sheller,” one of the very best of his essays. How he could
have written this splendid paper at a time of such distraction
passes comprehension. Furthermore, it is clear that he had revised,
indeed rewritten, the long story of Pudd'nhead Wilson.
*****
To Fred J. Hall, in New York:
July 30, '93.
DEAR MR. HALL,--This time “Pudd'nhead Wilson” is a success! Even Mrs.
Clemens, the most difficult of critics, confesses it, and without
reserves or qualifications. Formerly she would not consent that it be
published either before or after my death. I have pulled the twins apart
and made two individuals of them; I have sunk them out of sight, they
are mere flitting shadows, now, and of no importance; their story has
disappeared from the book. Aunt Betsy Hale has vanished wholly, leaving
not a trace behind; aunt Patsy Cooper and her daughter Rowena have
almost disappeared--they scarcely walk across the stage. The whole story
is centered on the murder and the trial; from the first chapter the
movement is straight ahead without divergence or side-play to the murder
and the trial; everything that is done or said or that happens is a
preparation for those events. Therefore, 3 people stand up high, from
beginning to end, and only 3--Pudd'nhead, “Tom” Driscoll, and his nigger
mother, Roxana; none of the others are important, or get in the way of
the story or require the reader's attention. Consequently, the scenes
and episodes which were the strength of the book formerly are stronger
than ever, now.
When I began this final reconstruction the story contained 81,500 words,
now it contains only 58,000. I have knocked out everything that delayed
the march of the story--even the description of a Mississippi steamboat.
There's no weather in, and no scenery--the story is stripped for flight!
Now, then what is she worth? The amount of matter is but 3,000 words
short of the American Claimant, for which the syndicate paid $12,500.
There was nothing new in that story, but the finger-prints in this one
is virgin ground--absolutely fresh, and mighty curious and interesting
to everybody.
I don't want any more syndicating--nothing short of $20,000, anyway,
and that I can't get--but won't you see how much the Cosmopolitan will
stand?
Do your best for me, for I do not sleep these nights, for visions of the
poor-house.
This in spite of the hopeful tone of yours of 11th to Langdon (just
received) for in me hope is very nearly expiring. Everything does look
so blue, so dismally blue!
By and by I shall take up the Rhone open-boat voyage again, but not
now--we are going to be moving around too much. I have torn up some of
it, but still have 15,000 words that Mrs. Clemens approves of, and that
I like. I may go at it in Paris again next winter, but not unless I know
I can write it to suit me.
Otherwise I shall tackle Adam once more, and do him in a kind of a
friendly and respectful way that will commend him to the Sunday schools.
I've been thinking out his first life-days to-day and framing his
childish and ignorant impressions and opinions for him.