The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete

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


I am subbing at the Inquirer office. One man has engaged me to work for
him every Sunday till the first of next April, (when I shall return home
to take Ma to Ky;) and another has engaged my services for the 24th of
next month; and if I want it, I can get subbing every night of the week.
I go to work at 7 o'clock in the evening, and work till 3 o'clock the
next morning. I can go to the theatre and stay till 12 o'clock and then
go to the office, and get work from that till 3 the next morning; when I
go to bed, and sleep till 11 o'clock, then get up and loaf the rest of
the day. The type is mostly agate and minion, with some bourgeois; and
when one gets a good agate take,--["Agate," "minion," etc., sizes of
type; "take," a piece of work. Type measurement is by ems, meaning the
width of the letter 'm'.]--he is sure to make money. I made $2.50 last
Sunday, and was laughed at by all the hands, the poorest of whom sets
11,000 on Sunday; and if I don't set 10,000, at least, next Sunday, I'll
give them leave to laugh as much as they want to. Out of the 22
compositors in this office, 12 at least, set 15,000 on Sunday.

Unlike New York, I like this Philadelphia amazingly, and the people in
it. There is only one thing that gets my "dander" up--and that is the
hands are always encouraging me: telling me--"it's no use to get
discouraged--no use to be down-hearted, for there is more work here than
you can do!" "Down-hearted," the devil! I have not had a particle of
such a feeling since I left Hannibal, more than four months ago. I fancy
they'll have to wait some time till they see me down-hearted or afraid of
starving while I have strength to work and am in a city of 400,000
inhabitants. When I was in Hannibal, before I had scarcely stepped out
of the town limits, nothing could have convinced me that I would starve
as soon as I got a little way from home....

The grave of Franklin is in Christ Church-yard, corner of Fifth and Arch
streets. They keep the gates locked, and one can only see the flat slab
that lies over his remains and that of his wife; but you cannot see the
inscription distinctly enough to read it. The inscription, I believe,
reads thus:

"Benjamin |
and | Franklin"
Deborah |

I counted 27 cannons (6 pounders) planted in the edge of the sidewalk in
Water St. the other day. They are driven into the ground, about a foot,
with the mouth end upwards. A ball is driven fast into the mouth of
each, to exclude the water; they look like so many posts. They were put
there during the war. I have also seen them planted in this manner,
round the old churches, in N. Y.....

There is one fine custom observed in Phila. A gentleman is always
expected to hand up a lady's money for her. Yesterday, I sat in the
front end of the 'bus, directly under the driver's box--a lady sat
opposite me. She handed me her money, which was right. But, Lord!
a St. Louis lady would think herself ruined, if she should be so familiar
with a stranger. In St. Louis a man will sit in the front end of the
stage, and see a lady stagger from the far end, to pay her fare. The
Phila. 'bus drivers cannot cheat. In the front of the stage is a thing
like an office clock, with figures from 0 to 40, marked on its face.
When the stage starts, the hand of the clock is turned toward the 0.
When you get in and pay your fare, the driver strikes a bell, and the
hand moves to the figure 1--that is, "one fare, and paid for," and there
is your receipt, as good as if you had it in your pocket. When a
passenger pays his fare and the driver does not strike the bell
immediately, he is greeted "Strike that bell! will you?"

I must close now. I intend visiting the Navy Yard, Mint, etc., before I
write again. You must write often. You see I have nothing to write
interesting to you, while you can write nothing that will not interest
me. Don't say my letters are not long enough. Tell Jim Wolfe to write.
Tell all the boys where I am, and to write. Jim Robinson, particularly.
I wrote to him from N. Y. Tell me all that is going on in H--l.
Truly your brother
SAM.


Those were primitive times. Imagine a passenger in these easy-going days
calling to a driver or conductor to "Strike that bell!"

"H--l" is his abbreviation for Hannibal. He had first used it in a title
of a poem which a few years before, during one of Orion's absences, he
had published in the paper. "To Mary in Hannibal" was too long to set as
a display head in single column. The poem had no great merit, but under
the abbreviated title it could hardly fail to invite notice. It was one
of several things he did to liven up the circulation during a brief
period of his authority.

The doubtful money he mentions was the paper issued by private banks,
"wild cat," as it was called. He had been paid with it in New York,
and found it usually at a discount--sometimes even worthless. Wages and
money were both better in Philadelphia, but the fund for his mother's
trip to Kentucky apparently did not grow very rapidly.

The next letter, written a month later, is also to Orion Clemens, who had
now moved to Muscatine, Iowa, and established there a new paper with an
old title, 'The Journal'.


To Orion Clemens, in Muscatine, Iowa:

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 28th, 1853.
MY DEAR BROTHER,--I received your letter today. I think Ma ought to
spend the winter in St. Louis. I don't believe in that climate--it's too
cold for her.

The printers' annual ball and supper came off the other night. The
proceeds amounted to about $1,000. The printers, as well as other
people, are endeavoring to raise money to erect a monument to Franklin,
but there are so many abominable foreigners here (and among printers,
too,) who hate everything American, that I am very certain as much money
for such a purpose could be raised in St. Louis, as in Philadelphia.
I was in Franklin's old office this morning--the "North American"
(formerly "Philadelphia Gazette") and there was at least one foreigner
for every American at work there.

How many subscribers has the Journal got? What does the job-work pay?
and what does the whole concern pay?...

I will try to write for the paper occasionally, but I fear my letters
will be very uninteresting, for this incessant night-work dulls one's
ideas amazingly.

From some cause, I cannot set type nearly so fast as when I was at home.
Sunday is a long day, and while others set 12 and 15,000, yesterday, I
only set 10,000. However, I will shake this laziness off, soon,
I reckon....

How do you like "free-soil?"--I would like amazingly to see a good
old-fashioned negro.
My love to all
Truly your brother
SAM.


We may believe that it never occurred to the young printer, looking
up landmarks of Ben Franklin, that time would show points of
resemblance between the great Franklin's career and his own. Yet
these seem now rather striking. Like Franklin, he had been taken
out of school very young and put at the printer's trade; like
Franklin, he had worked in his brother's office, and had written for
the paper. Like him, too, he had left quietly for New York and
Philadelphia to work at the trade of printing, and in time Samuel
Clemens, like Benjamin Franklin, would become a world-figure,
many-sided, human, and of incredible popularity. The boy Sam
Clemens may have had such dreams, but we find no trace of them.

There is but one more letter of this early period. Young Clemens
spent some time in Washington, but if he wrote from there his
letters have disappeared. The last letter is from Philadelphia and
seems to reflect homesickness. The novelty of absence and travel
was wearing thin.


To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 5, '53.
MY DEAR SISTER,--I have already written two letters within the last two
hours, and you will excuse me if this is not lengthy. If I had the
money, I would come to St. Louis now, while the river is open; but within
the last two or three weeks I have spent about thirty dollars for
clothing, so I suppose I shall remain where I am. I only want to return
to avoid night-work, which is injuring my eyes. I have received one or
two letters from home, but they are not written as they should be, and I
know no more about what is going on there than the man in the moon. One
only has to leave home to learn how to write an interesting letter to an
absent friend when he gets back. I suppose you board at Mrs. Hunter's
yet--and that, I think, is somewhere in Olive street above Fifth.
Philadelphia is one of the healthiest places in the Union. I wanted to
spend this winter in a warm climate, but it is too late now. I don't
like our present prospect for cold weather at all.
Truly your brother
SAM.


But he did not return to the West for another half year. The
letters he wrote during that period have not survived. It was late
in the summer of 1854 when he finally started for St. Louis. He sat
up for three days and nights in a smoking-car to make the journey,
and arrived exhausted. The river packet was leaving in a few hours
for Muscatine, Iowa, where his mother and his two brothers were now
located. He paid his sister a brief visit, and caught the boat.
Worn-out, he dropped into his berth and slept the thirty-six hours
of the journey.

It was early when-he arrived--too early to arouse the family. In
the office of the little hotel where he waited for daylight he found
a small book. It contained portraits of the English rulers, with
the brief facts of their reigns. Young Clemens entertained himself
by learning this information by heart. He had a fine memory for
such things, and in an hour or two had the printed data perfectly
and permanently committed. This incidentally acquired knowledge
proved of immense value to him. It was his groundwork for all
English history.




II

LETTERS 1856-61. KEOKUK, AND THE RIVER. END OF PILOTING

There comes a period now of nearly four years, when Samuel Clemens
was either a poor correspondent or his letters have not been
preserved. Only two from this time have survived--happily of
intimate biographical importance.

Young Clemens had not remained in Muscatine. His brother had no
inducements to offer, and he presently returned to St. Louis, where
he worked as a compositor on the Evening News until the following
spring, rooming with a young man named Burrough, a journeyman
chair-maker with a taste for the English classics. Orion Clemens,
meantime, on a trip to Keokuk, had casually married there, and a
little later removed his office to that city. He did not move the
paper; perhaps it did not seem worth while, and in Keokuk he
confined himself to commercial printing. The Ben Franklin Book and
Job Office started with fair prospects. Henry Clemens and a boy
named Dick Hingham were the assistants, and somewhat later, when
brother Sam came up from St. Louis on a visit, an offer of five
dollars a week and board induced him to remain. Later, when it
became increasingly difficult to pay the five dollars, Orion took
his brother into partnership, which perhaps relieved the financial
stress, though the office methods would seem to have left something
to be desired. It is about at this point that the first of the two
letters mentioned was written. The writer addressed it to his
mother and sister--Jane Clemens having by this time taken up her
home with her daughter, Mrs. Moffett.


To Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

KEOKUK, Iowa, June 10th, 1856.
MY DEAR MOTHER & SISTER,--I have nothing to write. Everything is going
on well. The Directory is coming on finely. I have to work on it
occasionally, which I don't like a particle I don't like to work at too
many things at once. They take Henry and Dick away from me too. Before
we commenced the Directory, I could tell before breakfast just how much
work could be done during the day, and manage accordingly--but now, they
throw all my plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their work.
I have nothing to do with the book--if I did I would have the two book
hands do more work than they do, or else I would drop it. It is not a
mere supposition that they do not work fast enough--I know it; for
yesterday the two book hands were at work all day, Henry and Dick all the
afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set up five pages and a half
--and I set up two pages and a quarter of the same matter after supper,
night before last, and I don't work fast on such things. They are either
excessively slow motioned or very lazy. I am not getting along well with
the job work. I can't work blindly--without system. I gave Dick a job
yesterday, which I calculated he would set in two hours and I could work
off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper time, but he was
transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised this morning, remains
untouched. Through all the great pressure of job work lately, I never
before failed in a promise of the kind.
Your Son
SAM
Excuse brevity this is my 3rd letter to-night.


Samuel Clemens was never celebrated for his patience; we may imagine
that the disorder of the office tried his nerves. He seems, on the
whole, however, to have been rather happy in Keokuk. There were
plenty of young people there, and he was a favorite among them. But
he had grown dissatisfied, and when one day some weeks later there
fell into His hands an account of the riches of the newly explored
regions of the upper Amazon, he promptly decided to find his fortune
at the headwaters of the great South-American river. The second
letter reports this momentous decision. It was written to Henry
Clemens, who was temporarily absent-probably in Hannibal.


To Henry Clemens:

KEOKUK, August 5th, '56.
MY DEAR BROTHER,--..... Ward and I held a long consultation, Sunday
morning, and the result was that we two have determined to start to
Brazil, if possible, in six weeks from now, in order to look carefully
into matters there and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on
the first of March. We propose going via New York. Now, between you and
I and the fence you must say nothing about this to Orion, for he thinks
that Ward is to go clear through alone, and that I am to stop at New York
or New Orleans until he reports. But that don't suit me. My confidence
in human nature does not extend quite that far. I won't depend upon
Ward's judgment, or anybody's else--I want to see with my own eyes, and
form my own opinion. But you know what Orion is. When he gets a notion
into his head, and more especially if it is an erroneous one, the Devil
can't get it out again. So I know better than to combat his arguments
long, but apparently yielded, inwardly determined to go clear through.
Ma knows my determination, but even she counsels me to keep it from
Orion. She says I can treat him as I did her when I started to St. Louis
and went to New York--I can start to New York and go to South America!
Although Orion talks grandly about furnishing me with fifty or a hundred
dollars in six weeks, I could not depend upon him for ten dollars, so I
have "feelers" out in several directions, and have already asked for a
hundred dollars from one source (keep it to yourself.) I will lay on my
oars for awhile, and see how the wind sets, when I may probably try to
get more. Mrs. Creel is a great friend of mine, and has some influence
with Ma and Orion, though I reckon they would not acknowledge it. I am
going up there tomorrow, to press her into my service. I shall take care
that Ma and Orion are plentifully supplied with South American books.
They have Herndon's Report now. Ward and the Dr. and myself will hold a
grand consultation tonight at the office. We have agreed that no more
shall be admitted into our company.

I believe the Guards went down to Quincy today to escort our first
locomotive home.
Write soon.
Your Brother,
SAM.


Readers familiar with the life of Mark Twain know that none of the
would-be adventurers found their way to the Amazon: His two
associates gave up the plan, probably for lack of means. Young
Clemens himself found a fifty-dollar bill one bleak November day
blowing along the streets of Keokuk, and after duly advertising his
find without result, set out for the Amazon, by way of Cincinnati
and New Orleans.

"I advertised the find and left for the Amazon the same day," he
once declared, a statement which we may take with a literary
discount.

He remained in Cincinnati that winter (1856-57) working at his
trade. No letters have been preserved from that time, except two
that were sent to a Keokuk weekly, the Saturday Post, and as these
were written for publication, and are rather a poor attempt at
burlesque humor--their chief feature being a pretended illiteracy
--they would seem to bear no relation to this collection. He roomed
that winter with a rugged, self-educated Scotchman--a mechanic, but
a man of books and philosophies, who left an impress on Mark Twain's
mental life.

In April he took up once more the journey toward South America, but
presently forgot the Amazon altogether in the new career that opened
to him. All through his boyhood and youth Samuel Clemens had wanted
to be a pilot. Now came the long-deferred opportunity. On the
little Cincinnati steamer, the Paul Jones, there was a pilot named
Horace Bixby. Young Clemens idling in the pilot-house was one
morning seized with the old ambition, and laid siege to Bixby to
teach him the river. The terms finally agreed upon specified a fee
to Bixby of five hundred dollars, one hundred down, the balance when
the pupil had completed the course and was earning money. But all
this has been told in full elsewhere, and is only summarized here
because the letters fail to complete the story.

Bixby soon made some trips up the Missouri River, and in his absence
turned his apprentice, or "cub," over to other pilots, such being
the river custom. Young Clemens, in love with the life, and a
favorite with his superiors, had a happy time until he came under a
pilot named Brown. Brown was illiterate and tyrannical, and from
the beginning of their association pilot and apprentice disliked
each other cordially.

It is at this point that the letters begin once more--the first
having been written when young Clemens, now twenty-two years old,
had been on the river nearly a year. Life with Brown, of course,
was not all sorrow, and in this letter we find some of the fierce
joy of adventure which in those days Samuel Clemens loved.


To Onion Clemens and Wife, in Keokuk, Iowa:

SAINT LOUIS, March 9th, 1858.
DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER,--I must take advantage of the opportunity now
presented to write you, but I shall necessarily be dull, as I feel
uncommonly stupid. We have had a hard trip this time. Left Saint Louis
three weeks ago on the Pennsylvania. The weather was very cold, and the
ice running densely. We got 15 miles below town, landed the boat, and
then one pilot. Second Mate and four deck hands took the sounding boat
and shoved out in the ice to hunt the channel. They failed to find it,
and the ice drifted them ashore. The pilot left the men with the boat
and walked back to us, a mile and a half. Then the other pilot and
myself, with a larger crew of men started out and met with the same fate.
We drifted ashore just below the other boat. Then the fun commenced. We
made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the bow of the yawl, and put the men
(both crews) to it like horses, on the shore. Brown, the pilot, stood in
the bow, with an oar, to keep her head out, and I took the tiller. We
would start the men, and all would go well till the yawl would bring up
on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like so many
ten-pins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom of the boat.
After an hour's hard work we got back, with ice half an inch thick on the
oars. Sent back and warped up the other yawl, and then George (the first
mentioned pilot,) and myself, took a double crew of fresh men and tried
it again. This time we found the channel in less than half an hour,
and landed on an island till the Pennsylvania came along and took us off.
The next day was colder still. I was out in the yawl twice, and then we
got through, but the infernal steamboat came near running over us. We
went ten miles further, landed, and George and I cleared out again--found
the channel first trial, but got caught in the gorge and drifted
helplessly down the river. The Ocean Spray came along and started into
the ice after us, but although she didn't succeed in her kind intention
of taking us aboard, her waves washed us out, and that was all we wanted.
We landed on an island, built a big fire and waited for the boat. She
started, and ran aground! It commenced raining and sleeting, and a very
interesting time we had on that barren sandbar for the next four hours,
when the boat got off and took us aboard. The next day was terribly
cold. We sounded Hat Island, warped up around a bar and sounded again
--but in order to understand our situation you will have to read Dr. Kane.
It would have been impossible to get back to the boat. But the Maria
Denning was aground at the head of the island--they hailed us--we ran
alongside and they hoisted us in and thawed us out. We had then been out
in the yawl from 4 o'clock in the morning till half past 9 without being
near a fire. There was a thick coating of ice over men, yawl, ropes and
everything else, and we looked like rock-candy statuary. We got to Saint
Louis this morning, after an absence of 3 weeks--that boat generally
makes the trip in 2.

Henry was doing little or nothing here, and I sent him to our clerk to
work his way for a trip, by measuring wood piles, counting coal boxes,
and other clerkly duties, which he performed satisfactorily. He may go
down with us again, for I expect he likes our bill of fare better than
that of his boarding house.

I got your letter at Memphis as I went down. That is the best place to
write me at. The post office here is always out of my route, somehow or
other. Remember the direction: "S.L.C., Steamer Pennsylvania Care Duval
& Algeo, Wharfboat, Memphis." I cannot correspond with a paper, because
when one is learning the river, he is not allowed to do or think about
anything else.

I am glad to see you in such high spirits about the land, and I hope you
will remain so, if you never get richer. I seldom venture to think about
our landed wealth, for "hope deferred maketh the heart sick."

I did intend to answer your letter, but I am too lazy and too sleepy now.
We have had a rough time during the last 24 hours working through the ice
between Cairo and Saint Louis, and I have had but little rest.

I got here too late to see the funeral of the 10 victims by the burning
of the Pacific hotel in 7th street. Ma says there were 10 hearses, with
the fire companies (their engines in mourning--firemen in uniform,) the
various benevolent societies in uniform and mourning, and a multitude of
citizens and strangers, forming, altogether, a procession of 30,000
persons! One steam fire engine was drawn by four white horses, with
crape festoons on their heads.
Well I am--just--about--asleep--
Your brother
SAM.


Among other things, we gather from this letter that Orion Clemens
had faith in his brother as a newspaper correspondent, though the
two contributions from Cincinnati, already mentioned, were not
promising. Furthermore, we get an intimation of Orion's unfailing
confidence in the future of the "land"--that is to say, the great
tract of land in Eastern Tennessee which, in an earlier day, his
father had bought as a heritage for his children. It is the same
Tennessee land that had "millions in it" for Colonel Sellers--the
land that would become, as Orion Clemens long afterward phrased it,
"the worry of three generations."