The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete



But Howells thought the title satisfactory, and indeed it was the
best that could have been selected for the series. He wrote every
few days of his delight in the papers, and cautioned the author not
to make an attempt to please any "supposed Atlantic audience,"
adding, "Yarn it off into my sympathetic ear." Clemens replied:


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

H't'f'd. Dec. 8, 1874.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--It isn't the Atlantic audience that distresses me; for
it is the only audience that I sit down before in perfect serenity (for
the simple reason that it doesn't require a "humorist" to paint himself
striped and stand on his head every fifteen minutes.) The trouble was,
that I was only bent on "working up an atmosphere" and that is to me a
most fidgety and irksome thing, sometimes. I avoid it, usually, but in
this case it was absolutely necessary, else every reader would be
applying the atmosphere of his own or sea experiences, and that shirt
wouldn't fit, you know.

I could have sent this Article II a week ago, or more, but I couldn't
bring myself to the drudgery of revising and correcting it. I have been
at that tedious work 3 hours, now, and by George but I am glad it is
over.

Say--I am as prompt as a clock, if I only know the day a thing is wanted
--otherwise I am a natural procrastinaturalist. Tell me what day and
date you want Nos. 3 and 4, and I will tackle and revise them and they'll
be there to the minute.

I could wind up with No. 4., but there are some things more which I am
powerfully moved to write. Which is natural enough, since I am a person
who would quit authorizing in a minute to go to piloting, if the madam
would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat, any time.

My wife was afraid to write you--so I said with simplicity, "I will give
you the language--and ideas." Through the infinite grace of God there
has not been such another insurrection in the family before as followed
this. However, the letter was written, and promptly, too--whereas,
heretofore she has remained afraid to do such things.

With kind regards to Mrs. Howells,
Yrs ever,
MARK.


The "Old Times" papers appeared each month in the Atlantic until
July, 1875, and take rank to-day with Mark Twain's best work. When
the first number appeared, John Hay wrote: "It is perfect; no more
nor less. I don't see how you do it." Which was reported to
Howells, who said: "What business has Hay, I should like to know,
praising a favorite of mine? It's interfering."

These were the days when the typewriter was new. Clemens and
Twichell, during their stay in Boston, had seen the marvel in
operation, and Clemens had been unable to resist owning one. It was
far from being the perfect machine of to-day; the letters were all
capitals, and one was never quite certain, even of those. Mark
Twain, however, began with enthusiasm and practised faithfully. On
the day of its arrival he wrote two letters that have survived, the
first to his brother, the other to Howells.


Typewritten letter to W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Dec. 9, 1874.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I want to add a short paragraph to article No. 1, when
the proof comes. Merely a line or two, however.

I don't know whether I am going to make this typewriting machine go or
nto: that last word was intended for n-not; but I guess I shall make some
sort of a succss of it before I run it very long. I am so thick-fingered
that I miss the keys.

You needn't a swer this; I am only practicing to get three; another
slip-up there; only practici?ng to get the hang of the thing. I notice
I miss fire & get in a good many unnecessary letters and punctuation marks.
I am simply using you for a target to bang at. Blame my cats but this
thing requires genius in order to work it just right.
Yours ever,
(M)ARK.



Knowing Mark Twain, Howells wrote: "When you get tired of the
machine send it to me." Clemens naturally did get tired of the
machine; it was ruining his morals, he said. He presently offered
it to Howells, who by this time hesitated, but eventually yielded
and accepted it. If he was blasted by its influence the fact has
not been recorded.

One of the famous Atlantic dinners came along in December. "Don't
you dare to refuse that invitation," wrote Howells, "to meet
Emerson, Aldrich, and all those boys at the Parker House, at six
o'clock, Tuesday, December 15th. Come!"

Clemens had no desire to refuse; he sent word that he would come,
and followed it with a characteristic line.


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Sunday.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I want you to ask Mrs. Howells to let you stay all
night at the Parker House and tell lies and have an improving time, and
take breakfast with me in the morning. I will have a good room for you,
and a fire. Can't you tell her it always makes you sick to go home late
at night, or something like that? That sort of thing rouses Mrs.
Clemens's sympathies, easily; the only trouble is to keep them up.
Twichell and I talked till 2 or 3 in the morning, the night we supped at
your house and it restored his health, on account of his being drooping
for some time and made him much more robuster than what he was before.
Will Mrs. Howells let you?
Yrs ever,
S. L. C.

Aldrich had issued that year a volume of poems, and he presented
Clemens with a copy of it during this Boston visit. The letter of
appreciation which follows contains also reference to an amusing
incident; but we shall come to that presently.


To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD.
Dec. 18, 1874.
MY DEAR ALDRICH,--I read the "Cloth of Gold" through, coming down in the
cars, and it is just lightning poetry--a thing which it gravels me to say
because my own efforts in that line have remained so persistently
unrecognized, in consequence of the envy and jealousy of this generation.
"Baby Bell" always seemed perfection, before, but now that I have
children it has got even beyond that. About the hour that I was reading
it in the cars, Twichell was reading it at home and forthwith fell upon
me with a burst of enthusiasm about it when I saw him. This was
pleasant, because he has long been a lover of it.

"Thos. Bailey Aldrich responded" etc., "in one of the brightest speeches
of the evening."

That is what the Tribune correspondent says. And that is what everybody
that heard it said. Therefore, you keep still. Don't ever be so unwise
as to go on trying to unconvince those people.

I've been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs.
Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun
in skating if you could do it with somebody else's muscles.--There are
about twenty boys booming by the house, now, and it is mighty good to
look at.

I'm keeping you in mind, you see, in the matter of photographs. I have
a couple to enclose in this letter and I want you to say you got them,
and then I shall know I have been a good truthful child.

I am going to send more as I ferret them out, about the place.--And I
won't forget that you are a "subscriber."

The wife and I unite in warm regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich.
Yrs ever,
S. L. CLEMENS.


A letter bearing the same date as the above went back to Howells, we
find, in reference to still another incident, which perhaps should
come first.

Mark Twain up to this time had worn the black "string" necktie of
the West--a decoration which disturbed Mrs. Clemens, and invited
remarks from his friends. He had persisted in it, however, up to
the date of the Atlantic dinner, when Howells and Aldrich decided
that something must be done about it.


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Dec. 18, 1874.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I left No. 3, (Miss. chapter) in my eldest's reach, and
it may have gone to the postman and it likewise may have gone into the
fire. I confess to a dread that the latter is the case and that that
stack of MS will have to be written over again. If so, O for the return
of the lamented Herod!

You and Aldrich have made one woman deeply and sincerely grateful--Mrs.
Clemens. For months--I may even say years--she had shown unaccountable
animosity toward my neck-tie, even getting up in the night to take it
with the tongs and blackguard it--sometimes also going so far as to
threaten it.

When I said you and Aldrich had given me two new neck-ties, and that they
were in a paper in my overcoat pocket, she was in a fever of happiness
until she found I was going to frame them; then all the venom in her
nature gathered itself together,--insomuch that I, being near to a door,
went without, perceiving danger.

Now I wear one of the new neck-ties, nothing being sacred in Mrs.
Clemens's eyes that can be perverted to a gaud that shall make the person
of her husband more alluring than it was aforetime.

Jo Twichell was the delightedest old boy I ever saw, when he read the
words you had written in that book. He and I went to the Concert of the
Yale students last night and had a good time.

Mrs. Clemens dreads our going to New Orleans, but I tell her she'll have
to give her consent this time.

With kindest regards unto ye both.
Yrs ever,
S. L. CLEMENS.


The reference to New Orleans at the end of this letter grew
naturally out of the enthusiasm aroused by the Mississippi papers.
The more Clemens wrote about the river the more he wished to revisit
it and take Howells with him. Howells was willing enough to go and
they eventually arranged to take their wives on the excursion. This
seemed all very well and possible, so long as the time was set for
some date in the future still unfixed. But Howells was a busy
editor, and it was much more easy for him to promise good-naturedly
than to agree on a definite time of departure. He explained at
length why he could not make the journey, and added: "Forgive me
having led you on to fix a time; I never thought it would come to
that; I supposed you would die, or something. I am really more
sorry and ashamed than I can make it appear." So the beautiful plan
was put aside, though it was not entirely abandoned for a long time.

We now come to the incident mentioned in Mark Twain's letter to
Aldrich, of December the 18th. It had its beginning at the Atlantic
dinner, where Aldrich had abused Clemens for never sending him any
photographs of himself. It was suggested by one or the other that
his name be put down as a "regular subscriber" for all Mark Twain
photographs as they "came out." Clemens returned home and hunted up
fifty-two different specimens, put each into an envelope, and began
mailing them to him, one each morning. When a few of them had
arrived Aldrich wrote, protesting.

"The police," he said, "have a way of swooping down on that kind of
publication. The other day they gobbled up an entire edition of
'The Life in New York.'"

Whereupon Clemens bundled up the remaining collection--forty-five
envelopes of photographs and prints-and mailed them together.

Aldrich wrote, now, violently declaring the perpetrator of the
outrage to be known to the police; that a sprawling yellow figure
against a green background had been recognized as an admirable
likeness of Mark Twain, alias the jumping Frog, a well-known
Californian desperado, formerly the chief of Henry Plummer's band of
road agents in Montana. The letter was signed, "T. Bayleigh, Chief
of Police." On the back of the envelope "T. Bayleigh" had also
written that it was "no use for the person to send any more letters,
as the post-office at that point was to be blown up. Forty-eight
hogs-head of nitroglycerine had been syrupticiously introduced into
the cellar of the building, and more was expected. R.W.E. H.W.L.
O.W.H., and other conspirators in masks have been seen flitting
about the town for some days past. The greatest excitement combined
with the most intense quietness reigns at Ponkapog."




XV.

LETTERS FROM HARTFORD, 1875. MUCH CORRESPONDENCE WITH HOWELLS

Orion Clemens had kept his job with Bliss only a short time. His mental
make-up was such that it was difficult for him to hold any position long.
He meant to do well, but he was unfortunate in his efforts. His ideas
were seldom practical, his nature was yielding and fickle. He had
returned to Keokuk presently, and being convinced there was a fortune in
chickens, had prevailed upon his brother to purchase for him a little
farm not far from the town. But the chicken business was not lively and
Orion kept the mail hot with manuscripts and propositions of every sort,
which he wanted his brother to take under advisement.

Certainly, to Mark Twain Orion Clemens was a trial. The letters of the
latter show that scarcely one of them but contains the outline of some
rainbow-chasing scheme, full of wild optimism, and the certainty that
somewhere just ahead lies the pot of gold. Only, now and then, there is
a letter of abject humiliation and complete surrender, when some golden
vision, some iridescent soap-bubble, had vanished at his touch. Such
depression did not last; by sunrise he was ready with a new dream, new
enthusiasm, and with a new letter inviting his "brother Sam's" interest
and investment. Yet, his fear of incurring his brother's displeasure was
pitiful, regardless of the fact that he constantly employed the very
means to insure that result. At one time Clemens made him sign a sworn
agreement that he would not suggest any plan or scheme of investment for
the period of twelve months. Orion must have kept this agreement. He
would have gone to the stake before he would have violated an oath, but
the stake would have probably been no greater punishment than his
sufferings that year.

On the whole, Samuel Clemens was surprisingly patient and considerate
with Orion, and there was never a time that he was not willing to help.
Yet there were bound to be moments of exasperation; and once, when his
mother, or sister, had written, suggesting that he encourage his
brother's efforts, he felt moved to write at considerable freedom.


To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.:

HARTFORD, Sunday, 1875.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I Saw Gov. Newell today and he said he was
still moving in the matter of Sammy's appointment--[As a West Point
cadet.]--and would stick to it till he got a result of a positive nature
one way or the other, but thus far he did not know whether to expect
success or defeat.

Ma, whenever you need money I hope you won't be backward about saying so
--you can always have it. We stint ourselves in some ways, but we have
no desire to stint you. And we don't intend to, either.

I can't "encourage" Orion. Nobody can do that, conscientiously, for the
reason that before one's letter has time to reach him he is off on some
new wild-goose chase. Would you encourage in literature a man who, the
older he grows the worse he writes? Would you encourage Orion in the
glaring insanity of studying law? If he were packed and crammed full of
law, it would be worthless lumber to him, for his is such a capricious
and ill-regulated mind that he would apply the principles of the law with
no more judgment than a child of ten years. I know what I am saying.
I laid one of the plainest and simplest of legal questions before Orion
once, and the helpless and hopeless mess he made of it was absolutely
astonishing. Nothing aggravates me so much as to have Orion mention law
or literature to me.

Well, I cannot encourage him to try the ministry, because he would change
his religion so fast that he would have to keep a traveling agent under
wages to go ahead of him to engage pulpits and board for him.

I cannot conscientiously encourage him to do anything but potter around
his little farm and put in his odd hours contriving new and impossible
projects at the rate of 365 a year--which is his customary average.
He says he did well in Hannibal! Now there is a man who ought to be
entirely satisfied with the grandeurs, emoluments and activities of a hen
farm--

If you ask me to pity Orion, I can do that. I can do it every day and
all day long. But one can't "encourage" quick-silver, because the
instant you put your finger on it it isn't there. No, I am saying too
much--he does stick to his literary and legal aspirations; and he
naturally would select the very two things which he is wholly and
preposterously unfitted for. If I ever become able, I mean to put Orion
on a regular pension without revealing the fact that it is a pension.
That is best for him. Let him consider it a periodical loan, and pay
interest out of the principal. Within a year's time he would be looking
upon himself as a benefactor of mine, in the way of furnishing me a good
permanent investment for money, and that would make him happy and
satisfied with himself. If he had money he would share with me in a
moment and I have no disposition to be stingy with him.
Affly
SAM.
Livy sends love.


The New Orleans plan was not wholly dead at this time. Howells
wrote near the end of January that the matter was still being
debated, now and then, but was far from being decided upon. He
hoped to go somewhere with Mrs. Howells for a brief time in March,
he said. Clemens, in haste, replied:


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Jan. 26, 1875.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--When Mrs. Clemens read your letter she said: "Well,
then, wherever they go, in March, the direction will be southward and so
they must give us a visit on the way." I do not know what sort of
control you may be under, but when my wife speaks as positively as that,
I am not in the habit of talking back and getting into trouble. Situated
as I am, I would not be able to understand, now, how you could pass by
this town without feeling that you were running a wanton risk and doing a
daredevil thing. I consider it settled that you are to come in March,
and I would be sincerely sorry to learn that you and Mrs. Howells feel
differently about it.

The piloting material has been uncovering itself by degrees, until it has
exposed such a huge hoard to my view that a whole book will be required
to contain it if I use it. So I have agreed to write the book for Bliss.
--[The book idea was later given up for the time being.]--I won't be
able to run the articles in the Atlantic later than the September number,
for the reason that a subscription book issued in the fall has a much
larger sale than if issued at any other season of the year. It is funny
when I reflect that when I originally wrote you and proposed to do from 6
to 9 articles for the magazine, the vague thought in my mind was that 6
might exhaust the material and 9 would be pretty sure to do it. Or
rather it seems to me that that was my thought--can't tell at this
distance. But in truth 9 chapters don't now seem to more than open up
the subject fairly and start the yarn to wagging.

I have been sick a-bed several days, for the first time in 21 years.
How little confirmed invalids appreciate their advantages. I was able to
read the English edition of the Greville Memoirs through without
interruption, take my meals in bed, neglect all business without a pang,
and smoke 18 cigars a day. I try not to look back upon these 21 years
with a feeling of resentment, and yet the partialities of Providence do
seem to me to be slathered around (as one may say) without that gravity
and attention to detail which the real importance of the matter would
seem to suggest.
Yrs ever
MARK.


The New Orleans idea continued to haunt the letters. The thought of
drifting down the Mississippi so attracted both Clemens and Howells,
that they talked of it when they met, and wrote of it when they were
separated. Howells, beset by uncertainties, playfully tried to put
the responsibility upon his wife. Once he wrote: "She says in the
noblest way, 'Well, go to New Orleans, if you want to so much' (you
know the tone). I suppose it will do if I let you know about the
middle of February?"

But they had to give it up in the end. Howells wrote that he had
been under the weather, and on half work the whole winter. He did
not feel that he had earned his salary, he said, or that he was
warranted in taking a three weeks' pleasure trip. Clemens offered
to pay all the expenses of the trip, but only indefinite
postponement followed. It would be seven years more before Mark
Twain would return to the river, and then not with Howells.

In a former chapter mention has been made of Charles Warren
Stoddard, whom Mark Twain had known in his California days. He was
fond of Stoddard, who was a facile and pleasing writer of poems and
descriptive articles. During the period that he had been acting as
Mark Twain's secretary in London, he had taken pleasure in
collecting for him the news reports of the celebrated Tichborn
Claimant case, then in the English courts. Clemens thought of
founding a story on it, and did, in fact, use the idea, though 'The
American Claimant,' which he wrote years later, had little or no
connection with the Tichborn episode.


To C. W. Stoddard:

HARTFORD, Feb. 1, 1875.
DEAR CHARLEY,--All right about the Tichborn scrapbooks; send them along
when convenient. I mean to have the Beecher-Tilton trial scrap-book as a
companion.....

I am writing a series of 7-page articles for the Atlantic at $20 a page;
but as they do not pay anybody else as much as that, I do not complain
(though at the same time I do swear that I am not content.) However the
awful respectability of the magazine makes up.

I have cut your articles about San Marco out of a New York paper (Joe
Twichell saw it and brought it home to me with loud admiration,) and sent
it to Howells. It is too bad to fool away such good literature in a
perishable daily journal.

Do remember us kindly to Lady Hardy and all that rare family--my wife and
I so often have pleasant talks about them.
Ever your friend,
SAML. L. CLEMENS.


The price received by Mark Twain for the Mississippi papers, as
quoted in this letter, furnishes us with a realizing sense of the
improvement in the literary market, with the advent of a flood of
cheap magazines and the Sunday newspaper. The Atlantic page
probably contained about a thousand words, which would make his
price average, say, two cents per word. Thirty years later, when
his fame was not much more extended, his pay for the same matter
would have been fifteen times as great, that is to say, at the rate
of thirty cents per word. But in that early time there were no
Sunday magazines--no literary magazines at all except the Atlantic,
and Harpers, and a few fashion periodicals. Probably there were
news-stands, but it is hard to imagine what they must have looked
like without the gay pictorial cover-femininity that to-day pleases
and elevates the public and makes author and artist affluent.

Clemens worked steadily on the river chapters, and Howells was
always praising him and urging him to go on. At the end of January
he wrote: "You're doing the science of piloting splendidly. Every
word's interesting. And don't you drop the series 'til you've got
every bit of anecdote and reminiscence into it."


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Feb. 10, 1875.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Your praises of my literature gave me the solidest
gratification; but I never did have the fullest confidence in my critical
penetration, and now your verdict on S-----has knocked what little I did
have gully-west! I didn't enjoy his gush, but I thought a lot of his
similes were ever so vivid and good. But it's just my luck; every time I
go into convulsions of admiration over a picture and want to buy it right
away before I've lost the chance, some wretch who really understands art
comes along and damns it. But I don't mind. I would rather have my
ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have got so much more
of it.