The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete

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


The Doctor Kane of this letter is, of course, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane,
the American Arctic explorer. Any book of exploration always
appealed to Mark Twain, and in those days Kane was a favorite.

The paragraph concerning Henry, and his employment on the
Pennsylvania, begins the story of a tragedy. The story has been
fully told elsewhere,--[Mark Twain: A Biography, by same author.]
--and need only be sketched briefly here. Henry, a gentle, faithful
boy, shared with his brother the enmity of the pilot Brown. Some
two months following the date of the foregoing letter, on a down
trip of the Pennsylvania, an unprovoked attack made by Brown upon
the boy brought his brother Sam to the rescue. Brown received a
good pummeling at the hands of the future humorist, who, though
upheld by the captain, decided to quit the Pennsylvania at New
Orleans and to come up the river by another boat. The Brown episode
has no special bearing on the main tragedy, though now in retrospect
it seems closely related to it. Samuel Clemens, coming up the river
on the A. T. Lacey, two days behind the Pennsylvania, heard a voice
shout as they approached the Greenville, Mississippi, landing:

"The Pennsylvania is blown up just below Memphis, at Ship Island!
One hundred and fifty lives lost!"

It was a true report. At six o'clock of a warm, mid-June morning,
while loading wood, sixty miles below Memphis, the Pennsylvania's
boilers had exploded with fearful results. Henry Clemens was among
the injured. He was still alive when his brother reached Memphis on
the Lacey, but died a few days later. Samuel Clemens had idolized
the boy, and regarded himself responsible for his death. The letter
that follows shows that he was overwrought by the scenes about him
and the strain of watching, yet the anguish of it is none the less
real.


To Mrs. Onion Clemens:

MEMPHIS, TENN., Friday, June 18th, 1858.
DEAR SISTER MOLLIE,--Long before this reaches you, my poor Henry my
darling, my pride, my glory, my all, will have finished his blameless
career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter darkness.
(O, God! this is hard to bear.) Hardened, hopeless,--aye, lost--lost
--lost and ruined sinner as I am--I, even I, have humbled myself to the
ground and prayed as never man prayed before, that the great God might
let this cup pass from me--that he would strike me to the earth, but
spare my brother--that he would pour out the fulness of his just wrath
upon my wicked head, but have mercy, mercy, mercy upon that unoffending
boy. The horrors of three days have swept over me--they have blasted my
youth and left me an old man before my time. Mollie, there are gray
hairs in my head tonight. For forty-eight hours I labored at the bedside
of my poor burned and bruised, but uncomplaining brother, and then the
star of my hope went out and left me in the gloom of despair. Men take
me by the hand and congratulate me, and call me "lucky" because I was not
on the Pennsylvania when she blew up! May God forgive them, for they
know not what they say.

Mollie you do not understand why I was not on that boat--I will tell you.
I left Saint Louis on her, but on the way down, Mr. Brown, the pilot that
was killed by the explosion (poor fellow,) quarreled with Henry without
cause, while I was steering. Henry started out of the pilot-house--Brown
jumped up and collared him--turned him half way around and struck him in
the face!--and him nearly six feet high--struck my little brother. I was
wild from that moment. I left the boat to steer herself, and avenged the
insult--and the Captain said I was right--that he would discharge Brown
in N. Orleans if he could get another pilot, and would do it in St.
Louis, anyhow. Of course both of us could not return to St. Louis on the
same boat--no pilot could be found, and the Captain sent me to the A. T.
Lacey, with orders to her Captain to bring me to Saint Louis. Had
another pilot been found, poor Brown would have been the "lucky" man.

I was on the Pennsylvania five minutes before she left N. Orleans, and I
must tell you the truth, Mollie--three hundred human beings perished by
that fearful disaster. Henry was asleep--was blown up--then fell back on
the hot boilers, and I suppose that rubbish fell on him, for he is
injured internally. He got into the water and swam to shore, and got
into the flatboat with the other survivors.--[Henry had returned once to
the Pennsylvania to render assistance to the passengers. Later he had
somehow made his way to the flatboat.]--He had nothing on but his wet
shirt, and he lay there burning up with a southern sun and freezing in
the wind till the Kate Frisbee came along. His wounds were not dressed
till he got to Memphis, 15 hours after the explosion. He was senseless
and motionless for 12 hours after that. But may God bless Memphis, the
noblest city on the face of the earth. She has done her duty by these
poor afflicted creatures--especially Henry, for he has had five--aye,
ten, fifteen, twenty times the care and attention that any one else has
had. Dr. Peyton, the best physician in Memphis (he is exactly like the
portraits of Webster) sat by him for 36 hours. There are 32 scalded men
in that room, and you would know Dr. Peyton better than I can describe
him, if you could follow him around and hear each man murmur as he
passes, "May the God of Heaven bless you, Doctor!" The ladies have done
well, too. Our second Mate, a handsome, noble hearted young fellow, will
die. Yesterday a beautiful girl of 15 stooped timidly down by his side
and handed him a pretty bouquet. The poor suffering boy's eyes kindled,
his lips quivered out a gentle "God bless you, Miss," and he burst into
tears. He made them write her name on a card for him, that he might not
forget it.

Pray for me, Mollie, and pray for my poor sinless brother.
Your unfortunate Brother,
SAML. L. CLEMENS.

P. S. I got here two days after Henry.


It is said that Mark Twain never really recovered from the tragedy
of his brother's death--that it was responsible for the serious,
pathetic look that the face of the world's greatest laugh-maker
always wore in repose.

He went back to the river, and in September of the same year, after
an apprenticeship of less than eighteen months, received his license
as a St. Louis and New Orleans pilot, and was accepted by his old
chief, Bixby, as full partner on an important boat. In Life on the
Mississippi Mark Twain makes the period of his study from two to two
and a half years, but this is merely an attempt to magnify his
dullness. He was, in fact, an apt pupil and a pilot of very high
class.

Clemens was now suddenly lifted to a position of importance. The
Mississippi River pilot of those days was a person of distinction,
earning a salary then regarded as princely. Certainly two hundred
and fifty dollars a month was large for a boy of twenty-three. At
once, of course, he became the head of the Clemens family. His
brother Orion was ten years older, but he had not the gift of
success. By common consent the younger brother assumed permanently
the position of family counselor and financier. We expect him to
feel the importance of his new position, and he is too human to
disappoint us. Incidentally, we notice an improvement in his
English. He no longer writes "between you and I."


Fragment of a letter to Orion Clemens. Written at St.
Louis in 1859:

...I am not talking nonsense, now--I am in earnest, I want you to keep
your troubles and your plans out of the reach of meddlers, until the
latter are consummated, so that in case you fail, no one will know it but
yourself.

Above all things (between you and me) never tell Ma any of your troubles;
she never slept a wink the night your last letter came, and she looks
distressed yet. Write only cheerful news to her. You know that she will
not be satisfied so long as she thinks anything is going on that she is
ignorant of--and she makes a little fuss about it when her suspicions are
awakened; but that makes no difference--. I know that it is better that
she be kept in the dark concerning all things of an unpleasant nature.
She upbraids me occasionally for giving her only the bright side of my
affairs (but unfortunately for her she has to put up with it, for I know
that troubles that I curse awhile and forget, would disturb her slumbers
for some time.) (Parenthesis No. 2--Possibly because she is deprived of
the soothing consolation of swearing.) Tell her the good news and me the
bad.

Putting all things together, I begin to think I am rather lucky than
otherwise--a notion which I was slow to take up. The other night I was
about to round to for a storm--but concluded that I could find a smoother
bank somewhere. I landed 5 miles below. The storm came--passed away and
did not injure us. Coming up, day before yesterday, I looked at the spot
I first chose, and half the trees on the bank were torn to shreds. We
couldn't have lived 5 minutes in such a tornado. And I am also lucky in
having a berth, while all the young pilots are idle. This is the
luckiest circumstance that ever befell me. Not on account of the wages
--for that is a secondary consideration--but from the fact that the City
of Memphis is the largest boat in the trade and the hardest to pilot, and
consequently I can get a reputation on her, which is a thing I never
could accomplish on a transient boat. I can "bank" in the neighborhood
of $100 a month on her, and that will satisfy me for the present
(principally because the other youngsters are sucking their fingers.)
Bless me! what a pleasure there is in revenge! and what vast respect
Prosperity commands! Why, six months ago, I could enter the "Rooms," and
receive only a customary fraternal greeting--but now they say, "Why, how
are you, old fellow--when did you get in?"

And the young pilots who used to tell me, patronizingly, that I could
never learn the river cannot keep from showing a little of their chagrin
at seeing me so far ahead of them. Permit me to "blow my horn," for I
derive a living pleasure from these things, and I must confess that when
I go to pay my dues, I rather like to let the d---d rascals get a glimpse
of a hundred dollar bill peeping out from amongst notes of smaller
dimensions, whose face I do not exhibit! You will despise this egotism,
but I tell you there is a "stern joy" in it.....

Pilots did not remain long on one boat, as a rule; just why it is not so
easy to understand. Perhaps they liked the experience of change; perhaps
both captain and pilot liked the pursuit of the ideal. In the
light-hearted letter that follows--written to a friend of the family,
formerly of Hannibal--we get something of the uncertainty of the pilot's
engagements.


To Mrs. Elizabeth W. Smith, in Jackson,
Cape Girardeau County, Mo.:

ST. Louis, Oct. 31 [probably 1859].
DEAR AUNT BETSEY,--Ma has not written you, because she did not know when
I would get started down the river again.....

You see, Aunt Betsey, I made but one trip on the packet after you left,
and then concluded to remain at home awhile. I have just discovered this
morning that I am to go to New Orleans on the "Col. Chambers"--fine,
light-draught, swift-running passenger steamer--all modern accommodations
and improvements--through with dispatch--for freight or passage apply on
board, or to--but--I have forgotten the agent's name--however, it makes
no difference--and as I was saying, or had intended to say, Aunt Betsey,
probably, if you are ready to come up, you had better take the "Ben
Lewis," the best boat in the packet line. She will be at Cape Girardeau
at noon on Saturday (day after tomorrow,) and will reach here at
breakfast time, Sunday. If Mr. Hamilton is chief clerk,--very well,
I am slightly acquainted with him. And if Messrs. Carter Gray and Dean
Somebody (I have forgotten his other name,) are in the pilot-house--very
well again-I am acquainted with them. Just tell Mr. Gray, Aunt Betsey
--that I wish him to place himself at your command.

All the family are well--except myself--I am in a bad way again--disease,
Love, in its most malignant form. Hopes are entertained of my recovery,
however. At the dinner table--excellent symptom--I am still as "terrible
as an army with banners."

Aunt Betsey--the wickedness of this world--but I haven't time to moralize
this morning.
Goodbye
SAM CLEMENS.


As we do not hear of this "attack" again, the recovery was probably
prompt. His letters are not frequent enough for us to keep track of
his boats, but we know that he was associated with Bixby from time
to time, and now and again with one of the Bowen boys, his old
Hannibal schoolmates. He was reveling in the river life, the ease
and distinction and romance of it. No other life would ever suit
him as well. He was at the age to enjoy just what it brought him
--at the airy, golden, overweening age of youth.


To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:

ST. LOUIS, Mch. 1860.
MY DEAR BRO.,--Your last has just come to hand. It reminds me strongly
of Tom Hood's letters to his family, (which I have been reading lately).
But yours only remind me of his, for although there is a striking
likeness, your humour is much finer than his, and far better expressed.
Tom Hood's wit, (in his letters) has a savor of labor about it which is
very disagreeable. Your letter is good. That portion of it wherein the
old sow figures is the very best thing I have seen lately. Its quiet
style resembles Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," and "Don Quixote,"
--which are my beau ideals of fine writing.

You have paid the preacher! Well, that is good, also. What a man wants
with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.

Pamela and I have just returned from a visit to the most wonderfully
beautiful painting which this city has ever seen--Church's "Heart of the
Andes"--which represents a lovely valley with its rich vegetation in all
the bloom and glory of a tropical summer--dotted with birds and flowers
of all colors and shades of color, and sunny slopes, and shady corners,
and twilight groves, and cool cascades--all grandly set off with a
majestic mountain in the background with its gleaming summit clothed in
everlasting ice and snow! I have seen it several times, but it is always
a new picture--totally new--you seem to see nothing the second time which
you saw the first. We took the opera glass, and examined its beauties
minutely, for the naked eye cannot discern the little wayside flowers,
and soft shadows and patches of sunshine, and half-hidden bunches of
grass and jets of water which form some of its most enchanting features.
There is no slurring of perspective effect about it--the most distant
--the minutest object in it has a marked and distinct personality--so that
you may count the very leaves on the trees. When you first see the tame,
ordinary-looking picture, your first impulse is to turn your back upon
it, and say "Humbug"--but your third visit will find your brain gasping
and straining with futile efforts to take all the wonder in--and
appreciate it in its fulness--and understand how such a miracle could
have been conceived and executed by human brain and human hands. You
will never get tired of looking at the picture, but your reflections
--your efforts to grasp an intelligible Something--you hardly know what
--will grow so painful that you will have to go away from the thing,
in order to obtain relief. You may find relief, but you cannot banish
the picture--It remains with you still. It is in my mind now--and the
smallest feature could not be removed without my detecting it. So much
for the "Heart of the Andes."

Ma was delighted with her trip, but she was disgusted with the girls for
allowing me to embrace and kiss them--and she was horrified at the
Schottische as performed by Miss Castle and myself. She was perfectly
willing for me to dance until 12 o'clock at the imminent peril of my
going to sleep on the after watch--but then she would top off with a very
inconsistent sermon on dancing in general; ending with a terrific
broadside aimed at that heresy of heresies, the Schottische.

I took Ma and the girls in a carriage, round that portion of New Orleans
where the finest gardens and residences are to be seen, and although it
was a blazing hot dusty day, they seemed hugely delighted. To use an
expression which is commonly ignored in polite society, they were
"hell-bent" on stealing some of the luscious-looking oranges from
branches which overhung the fences, but I restrained them. They were not
aware before that shrubbery could be made to take any queer shape which a
skilful gardener might choose to twist it into, so they found not only
beauty but novelty in their visit. We went out to Lake Pontchartrain in
the cars.
Your Brother
SAM CLEMENS


We have not before heard of Miss Castle, who appears to have been
one of the girls who accompanied Jane Clemens on the trip which her
son gave her to New Orleans, but we may guess that the other was his
cousin and good comrade, Ella Creel. One wishes that he might have
left us a more extended account of that long-ago river journey, a
fuller glimpse of a golden age that has vanished as completely as
the days of Washington.

We may smile at the natural youthful desire to air his reading, and
his art appreciation, and we may find his opinions not without
interest. We may even commend them--in part. Perhaps we no longer
count the leaves on Church's trees, but Goldsmith and Cervantes
still deserve the place assigned them.

He does not tell us what boat he was on at this time, but later in
the year he was with Bixby again, on the Alonzo Child. We get a bit
of the pilot in port in his next.


To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:

"ALONZO CHILD," N. ORLEANS, Sep. 28th 1860.
DEAR BROTHER,--I just received yours and Mollies letter yesterday--they
had been here two weeks--forwarded from St. Louis. We got here
yesterday--will leave at noon to-day. Of course I have had no time, in
24 hours, to do anything. Therefore I'll answer after we are under way
again. Yesterday, I had many things to do, but Bixby and I got with the
pilots of two other boats and went off dissipating on a ten dollar dinner
at a French restaurant breathe it not unto Ma!--where we ate sheep-head,
fish with mushrooms, shrimps and oysters--birds--coffee with brandy burnt
in it, &c &c,--ate, drank and smoked, from 2 p.m. until 5 o'clock, and
then--then the day was too far gone to do any thing.

Please find enclosed and acknowledge receipt of--$20.00
In haste
SAM L. CLEMENS


It should be said, perhaps, that when he became pilot Jane Clemens
had released her son from his pledge in the matter of cards and
liquor. This license did not upset him, however. He cared very
little for either of these dissipations. His one great indulgence
was tobacco, a matter upon which he was presently to receive some
grave counsel. He reports it in his next letter, a sufficiently
interesting document. The clairvoyant of this visit was Madame
Caprell, famous in her day. Clemens had been urged to consult her,
and one idle afternoon concluded to make the experiment. The letter
reporting the matter to his brother is fragmentary, and is the last
remaining to us of the piloting period.


Fragment of a letter to Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:

NEW ORLEANS February 6, 1862.
...She's a very pleasant little lady--rather pretty--about 28,--say
5 feet 2 and one quarter--would weigh 116--has black eyes and hair--is
polite and intelligent--used good language, and talks much faster than I
do.

She invited me into the little back parlor, closed the door; and we were
alone. We sat down facing each other. Then she asked my age. Then she
put her hands before her eyes a moment, and commenced talking as if she
had a good deal to say and not much time to say it in. Something after
this style:

MADAME. Yours is a watery planet; you gain your livelihood on the water;
but you should have been a lawyer--there is where your talents lie: you
might have distinguished yourself as an orator, or as an editor; you have
written a great deal; you write well--but you are rather out of practice;
no matter--you will be in practice some day; you have a superb
constitution, and as excellent health as any man in the world; you have
great powers of endurance; in your profession your strength holds out
against the longest sieges, without flagging; still, the upper part of
your lungs, the top of them is slightly affected--you must take care of
yourself; you do not drink, but you use entirely too much tobacco; and
you must stop it; mind, not moderate, but stop the use of it totally;
then I can almost promise you 86 when you will surely die; otherwise look
out for 28, 31, 34, 47, and 65; be careful--for you are not of a
long-lived race, that is on your father's side; you are the only healthy
member of your family, and the only one in it who has anything like the
certainty of attaining to a great age--so, stop using tobacco, and be
careful of yourself..... In some respects you take after your father,
but you are much more like your mother, who belongs to the long-lived,
energetic side of the house.... You never brought all your energies to
bear upon any subject but what you accomplished it--for instance, you are
self-made, self-educated.

S. L. C. Which proves nothing.

MADAME. Don't interrupt. When you sought your present occupation you
found a thousand obstacles in the way--obstacles unknown--not even
suspected by any save you and me, since you keep such matters to
yourself--but you fought your way, and hid the long struggle under a mask
of cheerfulness, which saved your friends anxiety on your account. To do
all this requires all the qualities I have named.

S. L. C. You flatter well, Madame.

MADAME. Don't interrupt: Up to within a short time you had always lived
from hand to mouth-now you are in easy circumstances--for which you need
give credit to no one but yourself. The turning point in your life
occurred in 1840-7-8.

S. L. C. Which was?

MADAME. A death perhaps, and this threw you upon the world and made you
what you are; it was always intended that you should make yourself;
therefore, it was well that this calamity occurred as early as it did.
You will never die of water, although your career upon it in the future
seems well sprinkled with misfortune. You will continue upon the water
for some time yet; you will not retire finally until ten years from
now.... What is your brother's age? 35--and a lawyer? and in pursuit of an
office? Well, he stands a better chance than the other two, and he may
get it; he is too visionary--is always flying off on a new hobby; this
will never do--tell him I said so. He is a good lawyer--a, very good
lawyer--and a fine speaker--is very popular and much respected, and makes
many friends; but although he retains their friendship, he loses their
confidence by displaying his instability of character..... The land he
has now will be very valuable after a while--

S. L. C. Say a 50 years hence, or thereabouts. Madame--

MADAME. No--less time-but never mind the land, that is a secondary
consideration--let him drop that for the present, and devote himself to
his business and politics with all his might, for he must hold offices
under the Government.....

After a while you will possess a good deal of property--retire at the end
of ten years--after which your pursuits will be literary--try the law
--you will certainly succeed. I am done now. If you have any questions
to ask--ask them freely--and if it be in my power, I will answer without
reserve--without reserve.

I asked a few questions of minor importance--paid her $2--and left, under
the decided impression that going to the fortune teller's was just as
good as going to the opera, and the cost scarcely a trifle more--ergo,
I will disguise myself and go again, one of these days, when other
amusements fail. Now isn't she the devil? That is to say, isn't she a
right smart little woman?