________________________________________________
_ Mark Twain must have been too busy to write letters that winter.
Those that have survived are few and unimportant. As a matter of
fact, he was writing the play, "Ah Sin," with Bret Harte, and
getting it ready for production. Harte was a guest in the Clemens
home while the play was being written, and not always a pleasant
one. He was full of requirements, critical as to the 'menage,' to
the point of sarcasm. The long friendship between Clemens and Harte
weakened under the strain of collaboration and intimate daily
intercourse, never to renew its old fiber. It was an unhappy
outcome of an enterprise which in itself was to prove of little
profit. The play, "Ah Sin," had many good features, and with
Charles T. Parsloe in an amusing Chinese part might have been made a
success, if the two authors could have harmoniously undertaken the
needed repairs. It opened in Washington in May, and a letter from
Parsloe, written at the moment, gives a hint of the situation.
From Charles T. Parsloe to S. L. Clemens:
WASHINGTON, D. C. May 11th, 1877.
MR. CLEMENS,--I forgot whether I acknowledged receipt of check by
telegram. Harte has been here since Monday last and done little or
nothing yet, but promises to have something fixed by tomorrow morning.
We have been making some improvements among ourselves. The last act is
weak at the end, and I do hope Mr. Harte will have something for a good
finish to the piece. The other acts I think are all right, now.
Hope you have entirely recovered. I am not very well myself, the
excitement of a first night is bad enough, but to have the annoyance with
Harte that I have is too much for a beginner. I ain't used to it. The
houses have been picking up since Tuesday Mr. Ford has worked well and
hard for us.
Yours in, haste,
CHAS. THOS. PARSLOE.
The play drew some good houses in Washington, but it could not hold
them for a run. Never mind what was the matter with it; perhaps a
very small change at the right point would have turned it into a
fine success. We have seen in a former letter the obligation which
Mark Twain confessed to Harte--a debt he had tried in many ways to
repay--obtaining for him a liberal book contract with Bliss;
advancing him frequent and large sums of money which Harte could
not, or did not, repay; seeking to advance his fortunes in many
directions. The mistake came when he introduced another genius into
the intracacies of his daily life. Clemens went down to Washington
during the early rehearsals of "Ah Sin."
Meantime, Rutherford B. Hayes had been elected President, and
Clemens one day called with a letter of introduction from Howells,
thinking to meet the Chief Executive. His own letter to Howells,
later, probably does not give the real reason of his failure, but it
will be amusing to those who recall the erratic personality of
George Francis Train. Train and Twain were sometimes confused by
the very unlettered; or pretendedly, by Mark Twain's friends.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
BALTIMORE, May 1, '77.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Found I was not absolutely needed in Washington so I
only staid 24 hours, and am on my way home, now. I called at the White
House, and got admission to Col. Rodgers, because I wanted to inquire
what was the right hour to go and infest the, President. It was my luck
to strike the place in the dead waste and middle of the day, the very
busiest time. I perceived that Mr. Rodgers took me for George Francis
Train and had made up his mind not to let me get at the President; so at
the end of half an hour I took my letter of introduction from the table
and went away. It was a great pity all round, and a great loss to the
nation, for I was brim full of the Eastern question. I didn't get to see
the President or the Chief Magistrate either, though I had sort of a
glimpse of a lady at a window who resembled her portraits.
Yrs ever,
MARK.
Howells condoled with him on his failure to see the President,
"but," he added, "if you and I had both been there, our combined
skill would have no doubt procured us to be expelled from the White
House by Fred Douglass. But the thing seems to be a complete
failure as it was." Douglass at this time being the Marshal of
Columbia, gives special point to Howells's suggestion.
Later, in May, Clemens took Twichell for an excursion to Bermuda.
He had begged Howells to go with them, but Howells, as usual, was
full of literary affairs. Twichell and Clemens spent four glorious
days tramping the length and breadth of the beautiful island, and
remembered it always as one of their happiest adventures. "Put it
down as an Oasis!" wrote Twichell on his return, "I'm afraid I shall
not see as green a spot again soon. And it was your invention and
your gift. And your company was the best of it. Indeed, I never
took more comfort in being with you than on this journey, which, my
boy, is saying a great deal."
To Howells, Clemens triumphantly reported the success of the
excursion.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, May 29, 1877.
Confound you, Joe Twichell and I roamed about Bermuda day and night and
never ceased to gabble and enjoy. About half the talk was--"It is a
burning shame that Howells isn't here." "Nobody could get at the very
meat and marrow of this pervading charm and deliciousness like Howells;"
"How Howells would revel in the quaintness, and the simplicity of this
people and the Sabbath repose of this land." "What an imperishable
sketch Howells would make of Capt. West the whaler, and Capt. Hope with
the patient, pathetic face, wanderer in all the oceans for 42 years,
lucky in none; coming home defeated once more, now, minus his ship--
resigned, uncomplaining, being used to this." "What a rattling chapter
Howells would make out of the small boy Alfred, with his alert eye and
military brevity and exactness of speech; and out of the old landlady;
and her sacred onions; and her daughter; and the visiting clergyman; and
the ancient pianos of Hamilton and the venerable music in vogue there--
and forty other things which we shall leave untouched or touched but
lightly upon, we not being worthy." "Dam Howells for not being here!"
(this usually from me, not Twichell.)
O, your insufferable pride, which will have a fall some day! If you had
gone with us and let me pay the $50 which the trip and the board and the
various nicknacks and mementoes would cost, I would have picked up enough
droppings from your conversation to pay me 500 per cent profit in the way
of the several magazine articles which I could have written, whereas I
can now write only one or two and am therefore largely out of pocket by
your proud ways. Ponder these things. Lord, what a perfectly bewitching
excursion it was! I traveled under an assumed name and was never
molested with a polite attention from anybody.
Love to you all.
Yrs ever
MARK
Aldrich, meantime, had invited the Clemenses to Ponkapog during the
Bermuda absence, and Clemens hastened to send him a line expressing
regrets. At the close he said:
To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.:
FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, June 3, 1877.
Day after tomorrow we leave for the hills beyond Elmira, N. Y. for the
summer, when I shall hope to write a book of some sort or other to beat
the people with. A work similar to your new one in the Atlantic is what
I mean, though I have not heard what the nature of that one is. Immoral,
I suppose. Well, you are right. Such books sell best, Howells says.
Howells says he is going to make his next book indelicate. He says he
thinks there is money in it. He says there is a large class of the
young, in schools and seminaries who--But you let him tell you. He has
ciphered it all down to a demonstration.
With the warmest remembrances to the pair of you
Ever Yours
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
Clemens would naturally write something about Bermuda, and began at
once, "Random Notes of an Idle Excursion," and presently completed
four papers, which Howells eagerly accepted for the Atlantic. Then
we find him plunging into another play, this time alone.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, June 27, 1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--If you should not like the first 2 chapters, send them
to me and begin with Chapter 3--or Part 3, I believe you call these
things in the magazine. I have finished No. 4., which closes the series,
and will mail it tomorrow if I think of it. I like this one, I liked the
preceding one (already mailed to you some time ago) but I had my doubts
about 1 and 2. Do not hesitate to squelch them, even with derision and
insult.
Today I am deep in a comedy which I began this morning--principal
character, that old detective--I skeletoned the first act and wrote the
second, today; and am dog-tired, now. Fifty-four close pages of MS in 7
hours. Once I wrote 55 pages at a sitting--that was on the opening
chapters of the "Gilded Age" novel. When I cool down, an hour from now,
I shall go to zero, I judge.
Yrs ever,
MARK.
Clemens had doubts as to the quality of the Bermuda papers, and with
some reason. They did not represent him at his best. Nevertheless,
they were pleasantly entertaining, and Howells expressed full
approval of them for Atlantic use. The author remained troubled.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, July 4,1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It is splendid of you to say those pleasant things.
But I am still plagued with doubts about Parts 1 and 2. If you have any,
don't print. If otherwise, please make some cold villain like Lathrop
read and pass sentence on them. Mind, I thought they were good, at
first--it was the second reading that accomplished its hellish purpose on
me. Put them up for a new verdict. Part 4 has lain in my pigeon-hole a
good while, and when I put it there I had a Christian's confidence in 4
aces in it; and you can be sure it will skip toward Connecticut tomorrow
before any fatal fresh reading makes me draw my bet.
I've piled up 151 MS pages on my comedy. The first, second and fourth
acts are done, and done to my satisfaction, too. Tomorrow and next day
will finish the 3rd act and the play. I have not written less than 30
pages any day since I began. Never had so much fun over anything in my
life-never such consuming interest and delight. (But Lord bless you the
second reading will fetch it!) And just think!--I had Sol Smith Russell
in my mind's eye for the old detective's part, and hang it he has gone
off pottering with Oliver Optic, or else the papers lie.
I read everything about the President's doings there with exultation.
I wish that old ass of a private secretary hadn't taken me for George
Francis Train. If ignorance were a means of grace I wouldn't trade that
gorilla's chances for the Archbishop of Canterbury's.
I shall call on the President again, by and by. I shall go in my war
paint; and if I am obstructed the nation will have the unusual spectacle
of a private secretary with a pen over one ear a tomahawk over the other.
I read the entire Atlantic this time. Wonderful number. Mrs. Rose Terry
Cooke's story was a ten-strike. I wish she would write 12 old-time New
England tales a year.
Good times to you all! Mind if you don't run here for a few days you
will go to hence without having had a fore-glimpse of heaven.
MARK.
The play, "Ah Sin," that had done little enough in Washington, was
that summer given another trial by Augustin Daly, at the Fifth
Avenue Theater, New York, with a fine company. Clemens had
undertaken to doctor the play, and it would seem to have had an
enthusiastic reception on the opening night. But it was a summer
audience, unspoiled by many attractions. "Ah Sin" was never a
success in the New York season--never a money-maker on the road.
The reference in the first paragraph of the letter that follows is
to the Bermuda chapters which Mark Twain was publishing
simultaneously in England and America.
ELMIRA, Aug 3,1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I have mailed one set of the slips to London, and told
Bentley you would print Sept. 15, in October Atlantic, and he must not
print earlier in Temple Bar. Have I got the dates and things right?
I am powerful glad to see that No. 1 reads a nation sight better in print
than it did in MS. I told Bentley we'd send him the slips, each time, 6
weeks before day of publication. We can do that can't we? Two months
ahead would be still better I suppose, but I don't know.
"Ah Sin" went a-booming at the Fifth Avenue. The reception of Col.
Sellers was calm compared to it.
*The criticisms were just; the criticisms of the great New York dailies
are always just, intelligent, and square and honest--notwithstanding,
by a blunder which nobody was seriously to blame for, I was made to say
exactly the opposite of this in a newspaper some time ago. Never said it
at all, and moreover I never thought it. I could not publicly correct it
before the play appeared in New York, because that would look as if I had
really said that thing and then was moved by fears for my pocket and my
reputation to take it back. But I can correct it now, and shall do it;
for now my motives cannot be impugned. When I began this letter, it had
not occurred to me to use you in this connection, but it occurs to me
now. Your opinion and mine, uttered a year ago, and repeated more than
once since, that the candor and ability of the New York critics were
beyond question, is a matter which makes it proper enough that I should
speak through you at this time. Therefore if you will print this
paragraph somewhere, it may remove the impression that I say unjust
things which I do not think, merely for the pleasure of talking.
There, now, Can't you say--
"In a letter to Mr. Howells of the Atlantic Monthly, Mark Twain describes
the reception of the new comedy 'Ali Sin,' and then goes on to say:" etc.
Beginning at the star with the words, "The criticisms were just." Mrs.
Clemens says, "Don't ask that of Mr. Howells--it will be disagreeable to
him." I hadn't thought of it, but I will bet two to one on the
correctness of her instinct. We shall see.
Will you cut that paragraph out of this letter and precede it with the
remarks suggested (or with better ones,) and send it to the Globe or some
other paper? You can't do me a bigger favor; and yet if it is in the
least disagreeable, you mustn't think of it. But let me know, right
away, for I want to correct this thing before it grows stale again.
I explained myself to only one critic (the World)--the consequence was a
noble notice of the play. This one called on me, else I shouldn't have
explained myself to him.
I have been putting in a deal of hard work on that play in New York, but
it is full of incurable defects.
My old Plunkett family seemed wonderfully coarse and vulgar on the stage,
but it was because they were played in such an outrageously and
inexcusably coarse way. The Chinaman is killingly funny. I don't know
when I have enjoyed anything as much as I did him. The people say there
isn't enough of him in the piece. That's a triumph--there'll never be
any more of him in it.
John Brougham said, "Read the list of things which the critics have
condemned in the piece, and you have unassailable proofs that the play
contains all the requirements of success and a long life."
That is true. Nearly every time the audience roared I knew it was over
something that would be condemned in the morning (justly, too) but must
be left in--for low comedies are written for the drawing-room, the
kitchen and the stable, and if you cut out the kitchen and the stable the
drawing-room can't support the play by itself.
There was as much money in the house the first two nights as in the first
ten of Sellers. Haven't heard from the third--I came away.
Yrs ever,
MARK.
In a former letter we have seen how Mark Twain, working on a story
that was to stand as an example of his best work, and become one of
his surest claims to immortality (The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn), displayed little enthusiasm in his undertaking. In the
following letter, which relates the conclusion of his detective
comedy, we find him at the other extreme, on very tiptoe with
enthusiasm over something wholly without literary value or dramatic
possibility. One of the hall-marks of genius is the inability to
discriminate as to the value of its output. "Simon Wheeler, Amateur
Detective" was a dreary, absurd, impossible performance, as wild and
unconvincing in incident and dialogue as anything out of an asylum
could well be. The title which he first chose for it, "Balaam's
Ass," was properly in keeping with the general scheme. Yet Mark
Twain, still warm with the creative fever, had the fullest faith in
it as a work of art and a winner of fortune. It would never see the
light of production, of course. We shall see presently that the
distinguished playwright, Dion Boucicault, good-naturedly
complimented it as being better than "Ahi Sin." One must wonder
what that skilled artist really thought, and how he could do even
this violence to his conscience.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Wednesday P.M. (1877)
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It's finished. I was misled by hurried mis-paging.
There were ten pages of notes, and over 300 pages of MS when the play was
done. Did it in 42 hours, by the clock; 40 pages of the Atlantic--but
then of course it's very "fat." Those are the figures, but I don't
believe them myself, because the thing's impossible.
But let that pass. All day long, and every day, since I finished (in the
rough) I have been diligently altering, amending, re-writing, cutting
down. I finished finally today. Can't think of anything else in the way
of an improvement. I thought I would stick to it while the interest was
hot--and I am mighty glad I did. A week from now it will be frozen--then
revising would be drudgery. (You see I learned something from the fatal
blunder of putting "Ah Sin" aside before it was finished.)
She's all right, now. She reads in two hours and 20 minutes and will
play not longer than 2 3/4 hours. Nineteen characters; 3 acts; (I
bunched 2 into 1.)
Tomorrow I will draw up an exhaustive synopsis to insert in the printed
title-page for copyrighting, and then on Friday or Saturday I go to New
York to remain a week or ten days and lay for an actor. Wish you could
run down there and have a holiday. 'Twould be fun.
My wife won't have "Balaam's Ass"; therefore I call the piece "Cap'n
Simon Wheeler, The Amateur Detective."
Yrs
MARK.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Aug. 29, 1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Just got your letter last night. No, dern that
article,--[One of the Bermuda chapters.]--it made me cry when I read it
in proof, it was so oppressively and ostentatiously poor. Skim your eye
over it again and you will think as I do. If Isaac and the prophets of
Baal can be doctored gently and made permissible, it will redeem the
thing: but if it can't, let's burn all of the articles except the tail-
end of it and use that as an introduction to the next article--as I
suggested in my letter to you of day before yesterday. (I had this proof
from Cambridge before yours came.)
Boucicault says my new play is ever so much better than "Ah Sin;" says
the Amateur detective is a bully character, too. An actor is chawing
over the play in New York, to see if the old Detective is suited to his
abilities. Haven't heard from him yet.
If you've got that paragraph by you yet, and if in your judgment it would
be good to publish it, and if you absolutely would not mind doing it,
then I think I'd like to have you do it--or else put some other words in
my mouth that will be properer, and publish them. But mind, don't think
of it for a moment if it is distasteful--and doubtless it is. I value
your judgment more than my own, as to the wisdom of saying anything at
all in this matter. To say nothing leaves me in an injurious position--
and yet maybe I might do better to speak to the men themselves when I go
to New York. This was my latest idea, and it looked wise.
We expect to leave here for home Sept. 4, reaching there the 8th--but we
may be delayed a week.
Curious thing. I read passages from my play, and a full synopsis, to
Boucicault, who was re-writing a play, which he wrote and laid aside 3 or
4 years ago. (My detective is about that age, you know.) Then he read a
passage from his play, where a real detective does some things that are
as idiotic as some of my old Wheeler's performances. Showed me the
passages, and behold, his man's name is Wheeler! However, his Wheeler
is not a prominent character, so we'll not alter the names. My Wheeler's
name is taken from the old jumping Frog sketch.
I am re-reading Ticknor's diary, and am charmed with it, though I still
say he refers to too many good things when he could just as well have
told them. Think of the man traveling 8 days in convoy and familiar
intercourse with a band of outlaws through the mountain fastnesses of
Spain--he the fourth stranger they had encountered in thirty years--and
compressing this priceless experience into a single colorless paragraph
of his diary! They spun yarns to this unworthy devil, too.
I wrote you a very long letter a day or two ago, but Susy Crane wanted to
make a copy of it to keep, so it has not gone yet. It may go today,
possibly.
We unite in warm regards to you and yours.
Yrs ever,
MARK.
The Ticknor referred to in a former letter was Professor George
Ticknor, of Harvard College, a history-writer of distinction. On
the margin of the "Diary" Mark Twain once wrote, "Ticknor is a
Millet, who makes all men fall in love with him." And adds: "Millet
was the cause of lovable qualities in people, and then he admired
and loved those persons for the very qualities which he (without
knowing it) had created in them. Perhaps it would be strictly truer
of these two men to say that they bore within them the divine
something in whose presence the evil in people fled away and hid
itself, while all that was good in them came spontaneously forward
out of the forgotten walls and comers in their systems where it was
accustomed to hide."
It is Frank Millet, the artist, he is speaking of--a knightly soul
whom all the Clemens household loved, and who would one day meet his
knightly end with those other brave men that found death together
when the Titanic went down.
The Clemens family was still at Quarry Farm at the end of August,
and one afternoon there occurred a startling incident which Mark
Twain thought worth setting down in practically duplicate letters to
Howells and to Dr. John Brown. It may be of interest to the reader
to know that John T. Lewis, the colored man mentioned, lived to a
good old age--a pensioner of the Clemens family and, in the course
of time, of H. H. Rogers. Howells's letter follows. It is the
"very long letter" referred to in the foregoing.
To W. D. Howells and wife, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Aug. 25 '77.
MY DEAR HOWELLSES,--I thought I ought to make a sort of record of it for
further reference; the pleasantest way to do that would be to write it to
somebody; but that somebody would let it leak into print and that we wish
to avoid. The Howellses would be safe--so let us tell the Howellses
about it.
Day before yesterday was a fine summer day away up here on the summit.
Aunt Marsh and Cousin May Marsh were here visiting Susie Crane and Livy
at our farmhouse. By and by mother Langdon came up the hill in the "high
carriage" with Nora the nurse and little Jervis (Charley Langdon's little
boy)--Timothy the coachman driving. Behind these came Charley's wife and
little girl in the buggy, with the new, young, spry, gray horse--a high-
stepper. Theodore Crane arrived a little later.
The Bay and Susy were on hand with their nurse, Rosa. I was on hand,
too. Susy Crane's trio of colored servants ditto--these being Josie,
house-maid; Aunty Cord, cook, aged 62, turbaned, very tall, very broad,
very fine every way (see her portrait in "A True Story just as I Heard
It" in my Sketches;) Chocklate (the laundress) (as the Bay calls her--she
can't say Charlotte,) still taller, still more majestic of proportions,
turbaned, very black, straight as an Indian--age 24. Then there was the
farmer's wife (colored) and her little girl, Susy.
Wasn't it a good audience to get up an excitement before? Good
excitable, inflammable material?
Lewis was still down town, three miles away, with his two-horse wagon,
to get a load of manure. Lewis is the farmer (colored). He is of mighty
frame and muscle, stocky, stooping, ungainly, has a good manly face and a
clear eye. Age about 45--and the most picturesque of men, when he sits
in his fluttering work-day rags, humped forward into a bunch, with his
aged slouch hat mashed down over his ears and neck. It is a spectacle to
make the broken-hearted smile. Lewis has worked mighty hard and remained
mighty poor. At the end of each whole year's toil he can't show a gain
of fifty dollars. He had borrowed money of the Cranes till he owed them
$700 and he being conscientious and honest, imagine what it was to him to
have to carry this stubborn, helpless load year in and year out.
Well, sunset came, and Ida the young and comely (Charley Langdon's wife)
and her little Julia and the nurse Nora, drove out at the gate behind the
new gray horse and started down the long hill--the high carriage
receiving its load under the porte cochere. Ida was seen to turn her
face toward us across the fence and intervening lawn--Theodore waved
good-bye to her, for he did not know that her sign was a speechless
appeal for help.
The next moment Livy said, "Ida's driving too fast down hill!" She
followed it with a sort of scream, "Her horse is running away!"
We could see two hundred yards down that descent. The buggy seemed to
fly. It would strike obstructions and apparently spring the height of a
man from the ground.
Theodore and I left the shrieking crowd behind and ran down the hill
bare-headed and shouting. A neighbor appeared at his gate--a tenth of a
second too late! the buggy vanished past him like a thought. My last
glimpse showed it for one instant, far down the descent, springing high
in the air out of a cloud of dust, and then it disappeared. As I flew
down the road my impulse was to shut my eyes as I turned them to the
right or left, and so delay for a moment the ghastly spectacle of
mutilation and death I was expecting.
I ran on and on, still spared this spectacle, but saying to myself:
"I shall see it at the turn of the road; they never can pass that turn
alive." When I came in sight of that turn I saw two wagons there bunched
together--one of them full of people. I said, "Just so--they are staring
petrified at the remains."
But when I got amongst that bunch, there sat Ida in her buggy and nobody
hurt, not even the horse or the vehicle. Ida was pale but serene. As I
came tearing down, she smiled back over her shoulder at me and said,
"Well, we're alive yet, aren't we?" A miracle had been performed--
nothing else.
You see Lewis, the prodigious, humped upon his front seat, had been
toiling up, on his load of manure; he saw the frantic horse plunging down
the hill toward him, on a full gallop, throwing his heels as high as a
man's head at every jump. So Lewis turned his team diagonally across the
road just at the "turn," thus making a V with the fence--the running
horse could not escape that, but must enter it. Then Lewis sprang to the
ground and stood in this V. He gathered his vast strength, and with a
perfect Creedmoor aim he seized the gray horse's bit as he plunged by and
fetched him up standing!
It was down hill, mind you. Ten feet further down hill neither Lewis nor
any other man could have saved them, for they would have been on the
abrupt "turn," then. But how this miracle was ever accomplished at all,
by human strength, generalship and accuracy, is clean beyond my
comprehension--and grows more so the more I go and examine the ground and
try to believe it was actually done. I know one thing, well; if Lewis
had missed his aim he would have been killed on the spot in the trap he
had made for himself, and we should have found the rest of the remains
away down at the bottom of the steep ravine.
Ten minutes later Theodore and I arrived opposite the house, with the
servants straggling after us, and shouted to the distracted group on the
porch, "Everybody safe!"
Believe it? Why how could they? They knew the road perfectly. We might
as well have said it to people who had seen their friends go over
Niagara.
However, we convinced them; and then, instead of saying something, or
going on crying, they grew very still--words could not express it, I
suppose.
Nobody could do anything that night, or sleep, either; but there was a
deal of moving talk, with long pauses between pictures of that flying
carriage, these pauses represented--this picture intruded itself all the
time and disjointed the talk.
But yesterday evening late, when Lewis arrived from down town he found
his supper spread, and some presents of books there, with very
complimentary writings on the fly-leaves, and certain very complimentary
letters, and more or less greenbacks of dignified denomination pinned to
these letters and fly-leaves,--and one said, among other things, (signed
by the Cranes) "We cancel $400 of your indebtedness to us," &c. &c.
(The end thereof is not yet, of course, for Charley Langdon is West and
will arrive ignorant of all these things, today.)
The supper-room had been kept locked and imposingly secret and mysterious
until Lewis should arrive; but around that part of the house were
gathered Lewis's wife and child, Chocklate, Josie, Aunty Cord and our
Rosa, canvassing things and waiting impatiently. They were all on hand
when the curtain rose.
Now, Aunty Cord is a violent Methodist and Lewis an implacable Dunker--
Baptist. Those two are inveterate religious disputants. The revealments
having been made Aunty Cord said with effusion--
"Now, let folks go on saying there ain't no God! Lewis, the Lord sent
you there to stop that horse."
Says Lewis:
"Then who sent the horse there in sich a shape?"
But I want to call your attention to one thing. When Lewis arrived the
other evening, after saving those lives by a feat which I think is the
most marvelous of any I can call to mind--when he arrived, hunched up on
his manure wagon and as grotesquely picturesque as usual, everybody
wanted to go and see how he looked. They came back and said he was
beautiful. It was so, too--and yet he would have photographed exactly as
he would have done any day these past 7 years that he has occupied this
farm.
Aug. 27.
P. S. Our little romance in real life is happily and satisfactorily
completed. Charley has come, listened, acted--and now John T. Lewis has
ceased to consider himself as belonging to that class called "the poor."
It has been known, during some years, that it was Lewis's purpose to buy
a thirty dollar silver watch some day, if he ever got where he could
afford it. Today Ida has given him a new, sumptuous gold Swiss stem-
winding stop-watch; and if any scoffer shall say, "Behold this thing is
out of character," there is an inscription within, which will silence
him; for it will teach him that this wearer aggrandizes the watch, not
the watch the wearer.
I was asked beforehand, if this would be a wise gift, and I said "Yes,
the very wisest of all;" I know the colored race, and I know that in
Lewis's eyes this fine toy will throw the other more valuable
testimonials far away into the shade. If he lived in England the Humane
Society would give him a gold medal as costly as this watch, and nobody
would say: "It is out of character." If Lewis chose to wear a town
clock, who would become it better?
Lewis has sound common sense, and is not going to be spoiled. The
instant he found himself possessed of money, he forgot himself in a plan
to make his old father comfortable, who is wretchedly poor and lives down
in Maryland. His next act, on the spot, was the proffer to the Cranes of
the $300 of his remaining indebtedness to them. This was put off by them
to the indefinite future, for he is not going to be allowed to pay that
at all, though he doesn't know it.
A letter of acknowledgment from Lewis contains a sentence which raises it
to the dignity of literature:
"But I beg to say, humbly, that inasmuch as divine providence saw fit to
use me as a instrument for the saving of those presshious lives, the
honner conferd upon me was greater than the feat performed."
That is well said.
Yrs ever
MARK.
Howells was moved to use the story in the. "Contributors' Club,"
and warned Clemens against letting it get into the newspapers. He
declared he thought it one of the most impressive things he had ever
read. But Clemens seems never to have allowed it to be used in any
form. In its entirety, therefore, it is quite new matter.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Sept. 19, 1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I don't really see how the story of the runaway horse
could read well with the little details of names and places and things
left out. They are the true life of all narrative. It wouldn't quite
do to print them at this time. We'll talk about it when you come.
Delicacy--a sad, sad false delicacy--robs literature of the best two
things among its belongings. Family-circle narrative and obscene
stories. But no matter; in that better world which I trust we are all
going to I have the hope and belief that they will not be denied us.
Say--Twichell and I had an adventure at sea, 4 months ago, which I did
not put in my Bermuda articles, because there was not enough to it. But
the press dispatches bring the sequel today, and now there's plenty to
it. A sailless, wasteless, chartless, compassless, grubless old
condemned tub that has been drifting helpless about the ocean for 4
months and a half, begging bread and water like any other tramp, flying a
signal of distress permanently, and with 13 innocent, marveling
chuckleheaded Bermuda niggers on board, taking a Pleasure Excursion! Our
ship fed the poor devils on the 25th of last May, far out at sea and left
them to bullyrag their way to New York--and now they ain't as near New
York as they were then by 250 miles! They have drifted 750 miles and are
still drifting in the relentless Gulf Stream! What a delicious magazine
chapter it would make--but I had to deny myself. I had to come right out
in the papers at once, with my details, so as to try to raise the
government's sympathy sufficiently to have better succor sent them than
the cutter Colfax, which went a little way in search of them the other
day and then struck a fog and gave it up.
If the President were in Washington I would telegraph him.
When I hear that the "Jonas Smith" has been found again, I mean to send
for one of those darkies, to come to Hartford and give me his adventures
for an Atlantic article.
Likely you will see my today's article in the newspapers.
Yrs ever,
MARK.
The revenue cutter Colfax went after the Jonas Smith, thinking there was
mutiny or other crime on board. It occurs to me now that, since there is
only mere suffering and misery and nobody to punish, it ceases to be a
matter which (a republican form of) government will feel authorized to
interfere in further. Dam a republican form of government.
Clemens thought he had given up lecturing for good; he was
prosperous and he had no love for the platform. But one day an idea
popped into his head: Thomas Nast, the "father of the American
cartoon," had delivered a successful series of illustrated lectures-
talks for which he made the drawings as he went along. Mark Twain's
idea was to make a combination with Nast. His letter gives us the
plan in full.
To Thomas Nast, Morristown, N. J.:
HARTFORD, CONN. 1877.
MY DEAR NAST,--I did not think I should ever stand on a platform again
until the time was come for me to say "I die innocent." But the same old
offers keep arriving. I have declined them all, just as usual, though
sorely tempted, as usual.
Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but because
(1) traveling alone is so heartbreakingly dreary, and (2) shouldering the
whole show is such a cheer-killing responsibility.
Therefore, I now propose to you what you proposed to me in 1867, ten
years ago (when I was unknown) viz., that you stand on the platform and
make pictures, and I stand by you and blackguard the audience. I should
enormously enjoy meandering around (to big towns--don't want to go to the
little ones) with you for company.
My idea is not to fatten the lecture agents and lyceums on the spoils,
but put all the ducats religiously into two equal piles, and say to the
artist and lecturer, "Absorb these."
For instance--[Here follows a plan and a possible list of cities to be
visited. The letter continues]
Call the gross receipts $100,000 for four months and a half, and the
profit from $60,000 to $75,000 (I try to make the figures large enough,
and leave it to the public to reduce them.)
I did not put in Philadelphia because Pugh owns that town, and last
winter when I made a little reading-trip he only paid me $300 and
pretended his concert (I read fifteen minutes in the midst of a concert)
cost him a vast sum, and so he couldn't afford any more. I could get up
a better concert with a barrel of cats.
I have imagined two or three pictures and concocted the accompanying
remarks to see how the thing would go. I was charmed.
Well, you think it over, Nast, and drop me a line. We should have some
fun.
Yours truly,
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
The plan came to nothing. Nast, like Clemens, had no special taste
for platforming, and while undoubtedly there would have been large
profits in the combination, the promise of the venture did not
compel his acceptance.
In spite of his distaste for the platform Mark Twain was always
giving readings and lectures, without charge, for some worthy
Hartford cause. He was ready to do what he could to help an
entertainment along, if he could do it in his own way--an original
way, sometimes, and not always gratifying to the committee, whose
plans were likely to be prearranged.
For one thing, Clemens, supersensitive in the matter of putting
himself forward in his own town, often objected to any special
exploitation of his name. This always distressed the committee, who
saw a large profit to their venture in the prestige of his fame.
The following characteristic letter was written in self-defense
when, on one such occasion, a committee had become sufficiently
peevish to abandon a worthy enterprise.
To an Entertainment Committee, in Hartford:
Nov. 9.
E. S. SYKES, Esq:
Dr. SIR,--Mr. Burton's note puts upon me all the blame of the destruction
of an enterprise which had for its object the succor of the Hartford
poor. That is to say, this enterprise has been dropped because of the
"dissatisfaction with Mr. Clemens's stipulations." Therefore I must be
allowed to say a word in my defense.
There were two "stipulations"--exactly two. I made one of them; if the
other was made at all, it was a joint one, from the choir and me.
My individual stipulation was, that my name should be kept out of the
newspapers. The joint one was that sufficient tickets to insure a good
sum should be sold before the date of the performance should be set.
(Understand, we wanted a good sum--I do not think any of us bothered
about a good house; it was money we were after)
Now you perceive that my concern is simply with my individual
stipulation. Did that break up the enterprise?
Eugene Burton said he would sell $300 worth of the tickets himself.--Mr.
Smith said he would sell $200 or $300 worth himself. My plan for Asylum
Hill Church would have ensured $150 from that quarter.--All this in the
face of my "Stipulation." It was proposed to raise $1000; did my
stipulation render the raising of $400 or $500 in a dozen churches
impossible?
My stipulation is easily defensible. When a mere reader or lecturer has
appeared 3 or 4 times in a town of Hartford's size, he is a good deal
more than likely to get a very unpleasant snub if he shoves himself
forward about once or twice more. Therefore I long ago made up my mind
that whenever I again appeared here, it should be only in a minor
capacity and not as a chief attraction.
Now, I placed that harmless and very justifiable stipulation before the
committee the other day; they carried it to headquarters and it was
accepted there. I am not informed that any objection was made to it, or
that it was regarded as an offense. It seems late in the day, now, after
a good deal of trouble has been taken and a good deal of thankless work
done by the committees, to, suddenly tear up the contract and then turn
and bowl me down from long range as being the destroyer of it.
If the enterprise has failed because of my individual stipulation, here
you have my proper and reasonable reasons for making that stipulation.
If it has failed because of the joint stipulation, put the blame there,
and let us share it collectively.
I think our plan was a good one. I do not doubt that Mr. Burton still
approves of it, too. I believe the objections come from other quarters,
and not from him. Mr. Twichell used the following words in last Sunday's
sermon, (if I remember correctly):
"My hearers, the prophet Deuteronomy says this wise thing: 'Though ye
plan a goodly house for the poor, and plan it with wisdom, and do take
off your coats and set to to build it, with high courage, yet shall the
croaker presently come, and lift up his voice, (having his coat on,) and
say, Verily this plan is not well planned--and he will go his way; and
the obstructionist will come, and lift up his voice, (having his coat
on,) and say, Behold, this is but a sick plan--and he will go his way;
and the man that knows it all will come, and lift up his voice, (having
his coat on,) and say, Lo, call they this a plan? then will he go his
way; and the places which knew him once shall know him no more forever,
because he was not, for God took him. Now therefore I say unto you,
Verily that house will not be budded. And I say this also: He that
waiteth for all men to be satisfied with his plan, let him seek eternal
life, for he shall need it.'"
This portion of Mr. Twichell's sermon made a great impression upon me,
and I was grieved that some one had not wakened me earlier so that I
might have heard what went before.
S. L. CLEMENS.
Mr. Sykes (of the firm of Sykes & Newton, the Allen House Pharmacy)
replied that he had read the letter to the committee and that it had
set those gentlemen right who had not before understood the
situation. "If others were as ready to do their part as yourself
our poor would not want assistance," he said, in closing.
We come now to an incident which assumes the proportions of an
episode-even of a catastrophe--in Mark Twain's career. The disaster
was due to a condition noted a few pages earlier--the inability of
genius to judge its own efforts. The story has now become history--
printed history--it having been sympathetically told by Howells in
My Mark Twain, and more exhaustively, with a report of the speech
that invited the lightning, in a former work by the present writer.
The speech was made at John Greenleaf Whittier's seventieth birthday
dinner, given by the Atlantic staff on the evening of December 17,
1877. It was intended as a huge joke--a joke that would shake the
sides of these venerable Boston deities, Longfellow, Emerson,
Holmes, and the rest of that venerated group. Clemens had been a
favorite at the Atlantic lunches and dinners--a speech by him always
an event. This time he decided to outdo himself.
He did that, but not in the way he had intended. To use one of his
own metaphors, he stepped out to meet the rainbow and got struck by
lightning. His joke was not of the Boston kind or size. When its
full nature burst upon the company--when the ears of the assembled
diners heard the sacred names of Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes
lightly associated with human aspects removed--oh, very far removed
--from Cambridge and Concord, a chill fell upon the diners that
presently became amazement, and then creeping paralysis. Nobody
knew afterward whether the great speech that he had so gaily planned
ever came to a natural end or not. Somebody--the next on the
program--attempted to follow him, but presently the company melted
out of the doors and crept away into the night.
It seemed to Mark Twain that his career had come to an end. Back in
Hartford, sweating and suffering through sleepless nights, he wrote
Howells his anguish.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Sunday Night. 1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--My sense of disgrace does not abate. It grows. I see
that it is going to add itself to my list of permanencies--a list of
humiliations that extends back to when I was seven years old, and which
keep on persecuting me regardless of my repentancies.
I feel that my misfortune has injured me all over the country; therefore
it will be best that I retire from before the public at present. It will
hurt the Atlantic for me to appear in its pages, now. So it is my
opinion and my wife's that the telephone story had better be suppressed.
Will you return those proofs or revises to me, so that I can use the same
on some future occasion?
It seems as if I must have been insane when I wrote that speech and saw
no harm in it, no disrespect toward those men whom I reverenced so much.
And what shame I brought upon you, after what you said in introducing me!
It burns me like fire to think of it.
The whole matter is a dreadful subject--let me drop it here--at least on
paper.
Penitently yrs,
MARK.
Howells sent back a comforting letter. "I have no idea of dropping
you out of the Atlantic," he wrote; "and Mr. Houghton has still
less, if possible. You are going to help and not hurt us many a
year yet, if you will.... You are not going to be floored by it;
there is more justice than that, even in this world."
Howells added that Charles Elliot Norton had expressed just the
right feeling concerning the whole affair, and that many who had not
heard the speech, but read the newspaper reports of it, had found it
without offense.
Clemens wrote contrite letters to Holmes, Emerson, and Longfellow,
and received most gracious acknowledgments. Emerson, indeed, had
not heard the speech: His faculties were already blurred by the
mental mists that would eventually shut him in. Clemens wrote again
to Howells, this time with less anguish.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Friday, 1877.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Your letter was a godsend; and perhaps the welcomest
part of it was your consent that I write to those gentlemen; for you
discouraged my hints in that direction that morning in Boston--rightly,
too, for my offense was yet too new, then. Warner has tried to hold up
our hands like the good fellow he is, but poor Twichell could not say a
word, and confessed that he would rather take nearly any punishment than
face Livy and me. He hasn't been here since.
It is curious, but I pitched early upon Mr. Norton as the very man who
would think some generous thing about that matter, whether he said it or
not. It is splendid to be a man like that--but it is given to few to be.
I wrote a letter yesterday, and sent a copy to each of the three. I
wanted to send a copy to Mr. Whittier also, since the offense was done
also against him, being committed in his presence and he the guest of the
occasion, besides holding the well-nigh sacred place he does in his
people's estimation; but I didn't know whether to venture or not, and so
ended by doing nothing. It seemed an intrusion to approach him, and even
Livy seemed to have her doubts as to the best and properest way to do in
the case. I do not reverence Mr. Emerson less, but somehow I could
approach him easier.
Send me those proofs, if you have got them handy; I want to submit them
to Wylie; he won't show them to anybody.
Had a very pleasant and considerate letter from Mr. Houghton, today, and
was very glad to receive it.
You can't imagine how brilliant and beautiful that new brass fender is,
and how perfectly naturally it takes its place under the carved oak. How
they did scour it up before they sent it! I lied a good deal about it
when I came home--so for once I kept a secret and surprised Livy on a
Christmas morning!
I haven't done a stroke of work since the Atlantic dinner; have only
moped around. But I'm going to try tomorrow. How could I ever have.
Ah, well, I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and
all His works must be contemplated with respect.
Livy and I join in the warmest regards to you and yours,
Yrs ever,
MARK.
Longfellow, in his reply, said: "I do not believe anybody was much hurt.
Certainly I was not, and Holmes tells me he was not. So I think you may
dismiss the matter from your mind without further remorse."
Holmes wrote: "It never occurred to me for a moment to take offense, or
feel wounded by your playful use of my name."
Miss Ellen Emerson replied for her father (in a letter to Mrs. Clemens)
that the speech had made no impression upon him, giving at considerable
length the impression it had made on herself and other members of the
family.
Clearly, it was not the principals who were hurt, but only those who
held them in awe, though one can realize that this would not make it
much easier for Mark Twain. _
Read next: VOLUME III - TWAIN'S LETTERS 1876-1885: CHAPTER XVIII - LETTERS FROM EUROPE, 1878-79. TRAMPING WITH TWICHELL. WRITING A NEW TRAVEL BOOK. LIFE IN MUNICH
Read previous: VOLUME III - TWAIN'S LETTERS 1876-1885: CHAPTER XVI - LETTERS, 1876, CHIEFLY TO W. D. HOWELLS. LITERATURE AND POLITICS. PLANNING A PLAY WITH BRET HARTE
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