HARTFORD, _Oct. 5, ’89_.
DEAR ELSIE: The way of it was this. Away last spring, Gillette[1] and I
pooled intellects on this proposition: to get up a pleasant surprise of
some kind for you against your next visit--the surprise to take the form
of a tasteful and beautiful testimonial of some sort or other, which
should express somewhat of the love we felt for you. Together we hit
upon just the right thing--a pair of slippers. Either one of us could
have thought of a single slipper, but it took both of us to think of two
slippers. In fact, one of us did think of one slipper, and then, quick
as a flash, the other thought of the other one. It shows how wonderful
the human mind is. It is really paleontological; you give one mind a
bone, and the other one instantly divines the rest of the animal.
Gillette embroidered his slipper with astonishing facility and splendor,
but I have been a long time pulling through with mine. You see, it was
my very first attempt at art, and I couldn’t rightly get the hang of it
along at first. And then I was so busy that I couldn’t get a chance to
work at it at home, and they wouldn’t let me embroider on the cars; they
said it made the other passengers afraid. They didn’t like the light
that flared into my eye when I had an inspiration. And even the most
fair-minded people doubted me when I explained what it was I was
making--especially brakemen. Brakemen always swore at it, and carried
on, the way ignorant people do, about art. They wouldn’t take my word
that it was a slipper; they said they believed it was a snowshoe that
had some kind of a disease.
But I have pulled through, and within twenty-four hours of the time I
told you I would--day before yesterday. There ought to be a key to the
designs, but I haven’t had time to get one up. However, if you will lay
the work before you with the forecastle pointing north, I will begin at
that end and explain the whole thing, layer by layer, so that you can
understand it.
I began with that first red bar, and without ulterior design, or plan of
any sort--just as I would begin a Prince and Pauper, or any other tale.
And mind you it is the easiest and surest way; because if you invent two
or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is
bound to happen to them--you can’t help it; and then it will take you
the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that
occurrence, and so, first thing you know, there’s your book all finished
up and never cost you an idea. Well, the red stripe, with a bias stitch,
naturally suggested a blue one with a perpendicular stitch, and I
slammed it in, though when it came daylight I saw it was green--which
didn’t make any difference, because green and blue are much the same,
anyway, and in fact from a purely moral point of view are regarded by
the best authorities as identical. Well, if you will notice, a blue
perpendicular stitch always suggests a ropy red involved stitch, like a
family of angle-worms trying to climb in under each other to keep
warm--it would suggest that, every time, without the author of the
slipper ever having to think about it at all.
Now at that point, young Dr. Root came in, and, of course, he was
interested in the slipper right away, because he has always had a
passion for art himself, but has never had a chance to try, because his
folks are opposed to it and superstitious about it, and have done all
they could to keep him back; and so he was eager to take a hand and see
what he could do. And it was beautiful to see him sit there and tell
Mrs. Clemens what had been happening while we were off on summer
vacation, and hold the slipper up toward the end of his nose, and forget
the sordid world, and imagine the canvas was a “subject” with a scalp
wound, and nimbly whirl in that lovely surgical stitch which you see
there--and never hesitating a moment in his talk except to say “Ouch”
when he stuck himself, and then going right on again as smooth and easy
as nothing. Yes, it was a charming spectacle. And it was real art,
too--realistic, just native untaught genius; you can see the very scalp
itself, showing through between the stitches.
Well, next I threw in that sheaf of green rods which the lictors used to
carry before the Roman consuls to lick them with when they didn’t
behave--they turned blue in the morning, but that is the way green
always acts.
The next week, after a good rest, I snowed in that sea of frothy waves,
and set that yellow thing afloat in it and those two things that are
skewered through it. It isn’t a home plate, and it isn’t a papal tiara
with the keys of St. Peter; no, it is a heart--my heart--with two arrows
stuck through it--arrows that go in blue and come out crimson--crimson
with the best drops in that heart, and gladly shed for love of you,
dear.
Now then, as you strike to the south’ard and drift along down the
starboard side, abaft the main-to’-gallant scuppers, you come to that
blue quarter-deck which runs the rest of the way aft to the jumping-off
place. In the midst of that blue you will see some big red letters--M.
T.; and west’ard, over on the port side, you will see some more red
letters--TO E. L. Aggregated, these several groups of letters signify,
Mark Twain to Elsie Leslie. And you will notice that you have a gift for
art yourself, for the southern half of the L, embroidered by yourself,
is as good as anything I can do, after all my experience.
There, now you understand the whole work. From a professional point of
view I consider the Heart and Arrows by all odds the greatest triumph
of the whole thing; in fact, one of the ablest examples of civil
engineering in a beginner I ever saw--for it was all inspiration, just
the lightninglike inspiration of the moment. I couldn’t do it again in
a hundred years--even if I recover this time and get just as well and
strong as I was before. You notice what fire there is in it--what
rapture, enthusiasm, frenzy--what blinding explosions of color. It is
just a “Turner”--that is what it is. It is just like his “Slave Ship,”
that immortal work. What you see in the “Slave Ship” is a terrific
explosion of radiating rags and fragments of flaming crimson flying
from a common center of intense yellow which is in violent
commotion--insomuch that a Boston reporter said it reminded him of a
yellow cat dying in a platter of tomatoes.
Take the slippers and wear them next your heart, Elsie dear; for every
stitch in them is a testimony of the affection which two of your
loyalest friends bear you. Every single stitch cost us blood. I’ve got
twice as many pores in me now as I used to have; and you would never
believe how many places you can stick a needle into yourself until you
go into the embroidery line and devote yourself to art.
Do not wear these slippers in public, dear; it would only excite envy;
and, as like as not, somebody would try to shoot you.
Merely use them to assist you in remembering that among the many, many
people who think all the world of you is your friend,