The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete

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


Notes--I make millions of them; and so I get no time to write to you. If
you've got a pad there, please send it poste-restante to Avignon. I may
not need it but I fear I shall.

I'm straining to reach St. Pierre de Boef, but it's going to be a close
fit, I reckon.


AFLOAT, Friday, 3 p.m., '91.
Livy darling, we sailed from St. Pierre de Boef six hours ago, and are
now approaching Tournon, where we shall not stop, but go on and make
Valence, a City Of 25,000 people. It's too delicious, floating with the
swift current under the awning these superb sunshiny days in deep peace
and quietness. Some of these curious old historical towns strangely
persuade me, but it is so lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them
from the outside and sail on. We get abundance of grapes and peaches for
next to nothing.

Joseph is perfect. He is at his very best--and never was better in his
life. I guess he gets discouraged and feels disliked and in the way when
he is lying around--but here he is perfection, and brim full of useful
alacrities and helps and ingenuities.

When I woke up an hour ago and heard the clock strike 4, I said "I seem
to have been asleep an immensely long time; I must have gone to bed
mighty early; I wonder what time I did go to bed." And I got up and lit
a candle and looked at my watch to see.


AFLOAT
2 HOURS BELOW BOURG ST. ANDEOL.
Monday, 11 a.m., Sept. 28.
Livy darling, I didn't write yesterday. We left La Voulte in a driving
storm of cold rain--couldn't write in it--and at 1 p. m. when we were
not thinking of stopping, we saw a picturesque and mighty ruin on a high
hill back of a village, and I was seized with a desire to explore it; so
we landed at once and set out with rubbers and umbrella, sending the boat
ahead to St. Andeol, and we spent 3 hours clambering about those cloudy
heights among those worn and vast and idiotic ruins of a castle built by
two crusaders 650 years ago. The work of these asses was full of
interest, and we had a good time inspecting, examining and scrutinizing
it. All the hills on both sides of the Rhone have peaks and precipices,
and each has its gray and wasted pile of mouldy walls and broken towers.
The Romans displaced the Gauls, the Visigoths displaced the Romans, the
Saracens displaced the Visigoths, the Christians displaced the Saracens,
and it was these pious animals who built these strange lairs and cut each
other's throats in the name and for the glory of God, and robbed and
burned and slew in peace and war; and the pauper and the slave built
churches, and the credit of it went to the Bishop who racked the money
out of them. These are pathetic shores, and they make one despise the
human race.

We came down in an hour by rail, but I couldn't get your telegram till
this morning, for it was Sunday and they had shut up the post office to
go to the circus. I went, too. It was all one family--parents and 5
children--performing in the open air to 200 of these enchanted villagers,
who contributed coppers when called on. It was a most gay and strange
and pathetic show. I got up at 7 this morning to see the poor devils
cook their poor breakfast and pack up their sordid fineries.

This is a 9 k-m. current and the wind is with us; we shall make Avignon
before 4 o'clock. I saw watermelons and pomegranates for sale at St.
Andeol.

With a power of love, Sweetheart,
SAML.


HOTEL D'EUROPE, AVIGNON,
Monday, 6 p.m., Sept. 28.
Well, Livy darling, I have been having a perfect feast of letters for an
hour, and I thank you and dear Clam with all my heart. It's like hearing
from home after a long absence.

It is early to be in bed, but I'm always abed before 9, on this voyage;
and up at 7 or a trifle later, every morning. If I ever take such a trip
again, I will have myself called at the first tinge of dawn and get to
sea as soon after as possible. The early dawn on the water-nothing can
be finer, as I know by old Mississippi experience. I did so long for you
and Sue yesterday morning--the most superb sunrise!--the most marvelous
sunrise! and I saw it all from the very faintest suspicion of the coming
dawn all the way through to the final explosion of glory. But it had
interest private to itself and not to be found elsewhere in the world;
for between me and it, in the far distant-eastward, was a silhouette
mountain-range in which I had discovered, the previous afternoon, a most
noble face upturned to the sky, and mighty form out stretched, which I
had named Napoleon Dreaming of Universal Empire--and now, this prodigious
face, soft, rich, blue, spirituelle, asleep, tranquil, reposeful, lay
against that giant conflagration of ruddy and golden splendors all rayed
like a wheel with the upstreaming and far-reaching lances of the sun. It
made one want to cry for delight, it was so supreme in its unimaginable
majesty and beauty.

We had a curious experience today. A little after I had sealed and
directed my letter to you, in which I said we should make Avignon before
4, we got lost. We ceased to encounter any village or ruin mentioned in
our "particularizes" and detailed Guide of the Rhone--went drifting along
by the hour in a wholly unknown land and on an uncharted river! Confound
it, we stopped talking and did nothing but stand up in the boat and
search the horizons with the glass and wonder what in the devil had
happened. And at last, away yonder at 5 o'clock when some east towers
and fortresses hove in sight we couldn't recognize them for Avignon--yet
we knew by the broken bridge that it was Avignon.

Then we saw what the trouble was--at some time or other we had drifted
down the wrong side of an island and followed a sluggish branch of the
Rhone not frequented in modern times. We lost an hour and a half by it
and missed one of the most picturesque and gigantic and history-sodden
masses of castellated medieval ruin that Europe can show.

It was dark by the time we had wandered through the town and got the
letters and found the hotel--so I went to bed.

We shall leave here at noon tomorrow and float down to Arles, arriving
about dark, and there bid good bye to the boat, the river-trip finished.
Between Arles and Nimes (and Avignon again,) we shall be till Saturday
morning--then rail it through on that day to Ouchy, reaching the hotel at
11 at night if the train isn't late.

Next day (Sunday) if you like, go to Basel, and Monday to Berlin. But I
shall be at your disposal, to do exactly as you desire and prefer.

With no end of love to all of you and twice as much to you,
sweetheart,
SAML.

I believe my arm is a trifle better than it was when I started.


The mention in the foregoing letter of the Napoleon effigy is the
beginning of what proved to be a rather interesting episode. Mark
Twain thought a great deal of his discovery, as he called it--the
giant figure of Napoleon outlined by the distant mountain range.
In his note-book he entered memoranda telling just where it was to
be seen, and added a pencil sketch of the huge profile. But then he
characteristically forgot all about it, and when he recalled the
incident ten years later, he could not remember the name of the
village, Beauchastel, from which the great figure could be seen;
also, that he had made a record of the place.

But he was by this time more certain than ever that his discovery
was a remarkable one, which, if known, would become one of the great
natural wonders, such as Niagara Falls. Theodore Stanton was
visiting him at the time, and Clemens urged him, on his return to
France, to make an excursion to the Rhone and locate the Lost
Napoleon, as he now called it. But Clemens remembered the wonder as
being somewhere between Arles and Avignon, instead of about a
hundred miles above the last-named town. Stanton naturally failed
to find it, and it remained for the writer of these notes, motoring
up the Rhone one September day, exactly twenty-two years after the
first discovery, to re-locate the vast reclining figure of the first
consul of France, "dreaming of Universal Empire." The re-discovery
was not difficult--with Mark Twain's memoranda as a guide--and it
was worth while. Perhaps the Lost Napoleon is not so important a
natural wonder as Mark Twain believed, but it is a striking picture,
and on a clear day the calm blue face outlined against the sky will
long hold the traveler's attention.

To Clara Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland:

AFLOAT, 11.20 a.m., Sept. 29, Tuesday.
DEAR OLD BEN,--The vast stone masses and huge towers of the ancient papal
palace of Avignon are projected above an intervening wooded island a mile
up the river behind me--for we are already on our way to Arles. It is a
perfectly still morning, with a brilliant sun, and very hot--outside; but
I am under cover of the linen hood, and it is cool and shady in here.

Please tell mamma I got her very last letter this morning, and I perceive
by it that I do not need to arrive at Ouchy before Saturday midnight.
I am glad, because I couldn't do the railroading I am proposing to do
during the next two or three days and get there earlier. I could put in
the time till Sunday midnight, but shall not venture it without
telegraphic instructions from her to Nimes day after tomorrow, Oct. 1,
care Hotel Manivet.

The only adventures we have is in drifting into rough seas now and then.
They are not dangerous, but they go thro' all the motions of it.
Yesterday when we shot the Bridge of the Holy Spirit it was probably in
charge of some inexperienced deputy spirit for the day, for we were
allowed to go through the wrong arch, which brought us into a tourbillon
below which tried to make this old scow stand on its head. Of course I
lost my temper and blew it off in a way to be heard above the roar of the
tossing waters. I lost it because the admiral had taken that arch in
deference to my opinion that it was the best one, while his own judgment
told him to take the one nearest the other side of the river. I could
have poisoned him I was so mad to think I had hired such a turnip.
A boatman in command should obey nobody's orders but his own, and yield
to nobody's suggestions.

It was very sweet of you to write me, dear, and I thank you ever so much.
With greatest love and kisses,
PAPA.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland:

ARLES, Sept. 30, noon.
Livy darling, I hain't got no time to write today, because I am sight
seeing industriously and imagining my chapter.

Bade good-bye to the river trip and gave away the boat yesterday evening.
We had ten great days in her.

We reached here after dark. We were due about 4.30, counting by
distance, but we couldn't calculate on such a lifeless current as we
found.
I love you, sweetheart.
SAML.


It had been a long time since Clemens had written to his old friend
Twichell, but the Rhone trip must have reminded him of those days
thirteen years earlier, when, comparatively young men, he and
Twichell were tramping through the Black Forest and scaling Gemmi
Pass. He sent Twichell a reminder of that happy time.


To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, in Hartford, Conn:

NIMES, Oct. 1, '91.
DEAR JOE,--I have been ten days floating down the Rhone on a raft, from
Lake Bourget, and a most curious and darling kind of a trip it has been.
You ought to have been along--I could have made room for you easily--and
you would have found that a pedestrian tour in Europe doesn't begin with
a raft-voyage for hilarity and mild adventure, and intimate contact with
the unvisited native of the back settlements, and extinction from the
world and newspapers, and a conscience in a state of coma, and lazy
comfort, and solid happiness. In fact there's nothing that's so lovely.

But it's all over. I gave the raft away yesterday at Arles, and am
loafing along back by short stages on the rail to Ouchy-Lausanne where
the tribe are staying.
Love to you all
MARK.


The Clemenses settled in Berlin for the winter, at 7 Kornerstrasse,
and later at the Hotel Royal. There had been no permanent
improvement in Mark Twain's arm and he found writing difficult.
Some of the letters promised to Laffan and McClure were still
unfinished.

Young Hall, his publishing manager in America, was working hard to
keep the business afloat, and being full of the optimism of his
years did not fail to make as good a showing as he could. We may
believe his letters were very welcome to Clemens and his wife, who
found little enough in the general prospect to comfort them.


To Mr. Hall, in New York:

BERLIN, Nov. 27, '91.
DEAR MR. HALL,--That kind of a statement is valuable. It came this
morning. This is the first time since the business began that I have had
a report that furnished the kind of information I wanted, and was really
enlightening and satisfactory. Keep it up. Don't let it fall into
desuetude.

Everything looks so fine and handsome with the business, now, that I feel
a great let-up from depression. The rewards of your long and patient
industry are on their way, and their arrival safe in port, presently,
seems assured.

By George, I shall be glad when the ship comes in!

My arm is so much better that I was able to make a speech last night to
250 Americans. But when they threw my portrait on the screen it was a
sorrowful reminder, for it was from a negative of 15 years ago, and
hadn't a gray hair in it. And now that my arm is better, I have stolen a
couple of days and finished up a couple of McClure letters that have been
lying a long time.

I shall mail one of them to you next Tuesday--registered. Lookout for
it.

I shall register and mail the other one (concerning the "Jungfrau") next
Friday look out for it also, and drop me a line to let me know they have
arrived.

I shall write the 6th and last letter by and by when I have studied
Berlin sufficiently.

Yours in a most cheerful frame of mind, and with my and all the family's
Thanksgiving greetings and best wishes,
S. L. CLEMENS.


Postscript by Mrs. Clemens written on Mr. Clemens's letter:

DEAR MR. HALL,--This is my birthday and your letter this morning was a
happy addition to the little gifts on the breakfast table. I thought of
going out and spending money for something unnecessary after it came, but
concluded perhaps I better wait a little longer.
Sincerely yours
O. L. CLEMENS.


"The German Chicago" was the last of the six McClure letters and was
finished that winter in Berlin. It is now included in the Uniform
Edition of Mark Twain's works, and is one of the best descriptive
articles of the German capital ever written. He made no use of the
Rhone notes further than to put them together in literary form.
They did not seem to him to contain enough substance to warrant
publication. A letter to Hall, written toward the end of December,
we find rather gloomy in tone, though he is still able to extract
comfort and even cheerfulness from one of Mr. Hall's reports.


Memorandum to Fred J. Hall, in New York:

Among the MSS I left with you are a few that have a recent look and are
written on rather stiff pale green paper. If you will have those
type-writered and keep the originals and send me the copies (one per
mail, not two.) I'll see if I can use them.

But tell Howells and other inquirers that my hopes of writing anything
are very slender--I seem to be disabled for life.

Drop McClure a line and tell him the same. I can't dare to make an
engagement now for even a single letter.

I am glad Howells is on a magazine, but sorry he gave up the Study.
I shall have to go on a magazine myself if this L. A. L. continues to
hold my nose down to the grind-stone much longer.

I'm going to hold my breath, now, for 30 days--then the annual statement
will arrive and I shall know how we feel! Merry Xmas to you from us all.

Sincerely,
S. L. C.

P. S. Just finished the above and finished raging at the eternal German
tax-gatherer, and so all the jubilant things which I was going to say
about the past year's business got knocked out of me. After writing this
present letter I was feeling blue about Huck Finn, but I sat down and
overhauled your reports from now back to last April and compared them
with the splendid Oct.-Nov. business, and went to bed feeling refreshed
and fine, for certainly it has been a handsome year. Now rush me along
the Annual Report and let's see how we feel!
S. L. C.




XXXII

LETTERS, 1892, CHIEFLY TO MR. HALL AND MRS. CRANE. IN BERLIN, MENTONE,
BAD-NAUHEIM, FLORENCE.

Mark Twain was the notable literary figure in Berlin that winter, the
center of every great gathering. He was entertained by the Kaiser, and
shown many special attentions by Germans of every rank. His books were
as well known in Berlin as in New York, and at court assemblies and
embassies he was always a chief center of interest.

He was too popular for his own good; the gaiety of the capital told on
him. Finally, one night, after delivering a lecture in a hot room, he
contracted a severe cold, driving to a ball at General von Versen's, and
a few days later was confined to his bed with pneumonia. It was not a
severe attack, but it was long continued. He could write some letters
and even work a little, but he was not allowed to leave his bed for many
weeks, a condition which he did not find a hardship, for no man ever
enjoyed the loose luxury of undress and the comfort of pillows more than
Mark Twain. In a memorandum of that time he wrote: "I am having a
booming time all to myself."

Meantime, Hall, in America, was sending favorable reports of the
publishing business, and this naturally helped to keep up his spirits.
He wrote frequently to Hall, of course, but the letters for the most part
are purely of a business nature and of little interest to the general
reader.


To Fred J. Hall, in New York:

HOTEL ROYAL, BERLIN, Feb. 12.
DEAR MR. HALL,--Daly wants to get the stage rights of the "American
Claimant." The foundation from which I wrote the story is a play of the
same name which has been in A. P. Burbank's hands 5 or 6 years. That
play cost me some money (helping Burbank stage it) but has never brought
me any. I have written Burbank (Lotos Club) and asked him to give me
back his rights in the old play so that I can treat with Daly and utilize
this chance to even myself up. Burbank is a lovely fellow, and if he
objects I can't urge him. But you run in at the Lotos and see him; and
if he relinquishes his claim, then I would like you to conduct the
business with Daly; or have Whitford or some other lawyer do it under
your supervision if you prefer.

This morning I seem to have rheumatism in my right foot.

I am ordered south by the doctor and shall expect to be well enough to
start by the end of this month.

[No signature.]



It is curious, after Clemens and Howells had tried so hard and so
long to place their "Sellers" Play, that now, when the story
appeared in book form, Augustin Daly should have thought it worth
dramatizing. Daly and Clemens were old friends, and it would seem
that Daly could hardly have escaped seeing the play when it was
going the rounds. But perhaps there is nothing more mysterious in
the world than the ways and wants of theatrical managers. The
matter came to nothing, of course, but the fact that Daly should
have thought a story built from an old discarded play had a play in
it seems interesting.

Clemens and his wife were advised to leave the cold of Berlin as
soon as he was able to travel. This was not until the first of
March, when, taking their old courier, Joseph Very, they left the
children in good hands and journeyed to the south of France.


To Susy Clemens, in Berlin:

MENTONE, Mch 22, '92.
SUSY DEAR,--I have been delighted to note your easy facility with your
pen and proud to note also your literary superiorities of one kind and
another--clearness of statement, directness, felicity of expression,
photographic ability in setting forth an incident--style--good style--no
barnacles on it in the way of unnecessary, retarding words (the Shipman
scrapes off the barnacles when he wants his racer to go her best gait and
straight to the buoy.) You should write a letter every day, long or short
--and so ought I, but I don't.

Mamma says, tell Clara yes, she will have to write a note if the fan
comes back mended.

We couldn't go to Nice to-day--had to give it up, on various accounts
--and this was the last chance. I am sorry for Mamma--I wish she could
have gone. She got a heavy fall yesterday evening and was pretty stiff
and lame this morning, but is working it off trunk packing.

Joseph is gone to Nice to educate himself in Kodaking--and to get the
pictures mounted which Mamma thinks she took here; but I noticed she
didn't take the plug out, as a rule. When she did, she took nine
pictures on top of each other--composites.
With lots of love.
PAPA.


In the course of their Italian wanderings they reached Florence,
where they were so comfortable and well that they decided to engage
a villa for the next winter. Through Prof. Willard Fiske, they
discovered the Villa Viviani, near Settignano, an old palace
beautifully located on the hilltops east of Florence, commanding a
wonderful view of the ancient city. Clemens felt that he could work
there, and time proved that he was right.

For the summer, however, they returned to Germany, and located at
Bad-Nauheim. Clemens presently decided to make a trip to America to
give some personal attention to business matters. For one thing,
his publishing-house, in spite of prosperity, seemed constantly to
be requiring more capital, and then a Chicago company had been
persuaded by Paige to undertake the manufacture of the type-setter.
It was the beginning of a series of feverish trips which he would
make back and forth across the ocean during the next two years.


To Fred J. Hall, in New York:

BAD-NAUHEIM, June 11, '92.
Saturday.
DEAR MR. HALL,--If this arrives before I do, let it inform you that I am
leaving Bremen for New York next Tuesday in the "Havel."

If you can meet me when the ship arrives, you can help me to get away
from the reporters; and maybe you can take me to your own or some other
lodgings where they can't find me.

But if the hour is too early or too late for you, I shall obscure myself
somewhere till I can come to the office.

Yours sincerely
S. L. C.


Nothing of importance happened in America. The new Paige company
had a factory started in Chicago and expected to manufacture fifty
machines as a beginning. They claimed to have capital, or to be
able to command it, and as the main control had passed from
Clemens's hands, he could do no more than look over the ground and
hope for the best. As for the business, about all that he could do
was to sign certain notes necessary to provide such additional
capital as was needed, and agree with Hall that hereafter they would
concentrate their efforts and resist further temptation in the way
of new enterprise. Then he returned to Bad-Nauheim and settled down
to literature. This was the middle of July, and he must have worked
pretty steadily, for he presently had a variety of MSS. ready to
offer.


To Fred J. Hall, in New York: