The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete

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


I don't want any more syndicating--nothing short of $20,000, anyway, and
that I can't get--but won't you see how much the Cosmopolitan will stand?

Do your best for me, for I do not sleep these nights, for visions of the
poor-house.

This in spite of the hopeful tone of yours of 11th to Langdon (just
received) for in me hope is very nearly expiring. Everything does look
so blue, so dismally blue!

By and by I shall take up the Rhone open-boat voyage again, but not now
--we are going to be moving around too much. I have torn up some of it,
but still have 15,000 words that Mrs. Clemens approves of, and that I
like. I may go at it in Paris again next winter, but not unless I know I
can write it to suit me.

Otherwise I shall tackle Adam once more, and do him in a kind of a
friendly and respectful way that will commend him to the Sunday schools.
I've been thinking out his first life-days to-day and framing his
childish and ignorant impressions and opinions for him.

Will ship Pudd'nhead in a few days. When you get it cable

Mark Twain
Care Brownship, London
Received.

I mean to ship "Pudd'nhead Wilson" to you-say, tomorrow. It'll furnish
me hash for awhile I reckon. I am almost sorry it is finished; it was
good entertainment to work at it, and kept my mind away from things.

We leave here in about ten days, but the doctors have changed our plans
again. I think we shall be in Bohemia or thereabouts till near the end
of September, then go to Paris and take a rest.
Yours Sincerely
S. L. C.

P. S. Mrs. Clemens has come in since, and read your letter and is deeply
distressed. She thinks that in some letter of mine I must have
reproached you. She says it is wonderful that you have kept the ship
afloat in this storm that has seen fleets and fleets go down; that from
what she learns of the American business-situation from her home letters
you have accomplished a marvel in the circumstances, and that she cannot
bear to have a word said to you that shall voice anything but praise and
the heartiest appreciation--and not the shadow of a reproach will she
allow.

I tell her I didn't reproach you and never thought of such a thing. And
I said I would break open my letter and say so.

Mrs. Clemens says I must tell you not to send any money for a month or
two--so that you may be afforded what little relief is in our power.
All right--I'm willing; (this is honest) but I wish Brer Chatto would
send along his little yearly contribution. I dropped him a line about
another matter a week ago--asked him to subscribe for the Daily News for
me--you see I wanted to remind him in a covert way that it was pay-up
time--but doubtless I directed the letter to you or some one else, for I
don't hear from him and don't get any Daily News either.


To Fred J. Hall, in New York:

Aug. 6, '93.
DEAR MR. HALL,--I am very sorry--it was thoughtless in me. Let the
reports go. Send me once a month two items, and two only:

Cash liabilities--(so much)
Cash assets--(so much)

I can perceive the condition of the business at a glance, then, and that
will be sufficient.

Here we never see a newspaper, but even if we did I could not come
anywhere near appreciating or correctly estimating the tempest you have
been buffeting your way through--only the man who is in it can do that
--but I have tried not to burden you thoughtlessly or wantonly. I have
been wrought and unsettled in mind by apprehensions, and that is a thing
that is not helpable when one is in a strange land and sees his resources
melt down to a two months' supply and can't see any sure daylight beyond.
The bloody machine offered but a doubtful outlook--and will still offer
nothing much better for a long time to come; for when Davis's "three
weeks" is up there's three months' tinkering to follow I guess. That is
unquestionably the boss machine of the world, but is the toughest one on
prophets, when it is in an incomplete state, that has ever seen the
light. Neither Davis nor any other man can foretell with any
considerable approach to certainty when it will be ready to get down to
actual work in a printing office.

[No signature.]


Three days after the foregoing letter was written he wrote, briefly:

"Great Scott but it's a long year-for you and me! I never knew the
almanac to drag so. At least since I was finishing that other
machine.

"I watch for your letters hungrily--just as I used to watch for the
cablegram saying the machine's finished; but when 'next week
certainly' swelled into 'three weeks sure' I recognized the old
familiar tune I used to hear so much. Ward don't know what
sick-heartedness is--but he is in a way to find out."

Always the quaint form of his humor, no matter how dark the way.
We may picture him walking the floor, planning, scheming, and
smoking--always smoking--trying to find a way out. It was not the
kind of scheming that many men have done under the circumstances;
not scheming to avoid payment of debts, but to pay them.


To Fred J. Hall, in New York:

Aug. 14, '93
DEAR MR. HALL,--I am very glad indeed if you and Mr. Langdon are able to
see any daylight ahead. To me none is visible. I strongly advise that
every penny that comes in shall be applied to paying off debts. I may be
in error about this, but it seems to me that we have no other course
open. We can pay a part of the debts owing to outsiders--none to the
Clemenses. In very prosperous times we might regard our stock and
copyrights as assets sufficient, with the money owing to us, to square up
and quit even, but I suppose we may not hope for such luck in the present
condition of things.

What I am mainly hoping for, is to save my royalties. If they come into
danger I hope you will cable me, so that I can come over and try to save
them, for if they go I am a beggar.

I would sail to-day if I had anybody to take charge of my family and help
them through the difficult journeys commanded by the doctors. I may be
able to sail ten days hence; I hope so, and expect so.

We can never resurrect the L. A. L. I would not spend any more money on
that book. You spoke, a while back, of trying to start it up again as a
preparation to disposing of it, but we are not in shape to venture that,
I think. It would require more borrowing, and we must not do that.
Yours Sincerely
S. L. C.

Aug. 16. I have thought, and thought, but I don't seem to arrive in any
very definite place. Of course you will not have an instant's safety
until the bank debts are paid. There is nothing to be thought of but to
hand over every penny as fast as it comes in--and that will be slow
enough! Or could you secure them by pledging part of our cash assets
and--

I am coming over, just as soon as I can get the family moved and settled.
S. L. C.


Two weeks following this letter he could endure the suspense no
longer, and on August 29th sailed once more for America. In New
York, Clemens settled down at the Players Club, where he could live
cheaply, and undertook some literary work while he was casting about
for ways and means to relieve the financial situation. Nothing
promising occurred, until one night at the Murray Hill Hotel he was
introduced by Dr. Clarence C. Rice to Henry H. Rogers, of the
Standard Oil group of financiers. Rogers had a keen sense of humor
and had always been a great admirer of Mark Twain's work. It was a
mirthful evening, and certainly an eventful one in Mark Twain's
life. A day or two later Doctor Rice asked the millionaire to
interest himself a little in Clemens's business affairs, which he
thought a good deal confused. Just what happened is not remembered
now, but from the date of the next letter we realize that a
discussion of the matter by Clemens and Rogers must have followed
pretty promptly.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Europe:

Oct. 18, '93.
DEAR, DEAR SWEETHEART,--I don't seem to get even half a chance to write
you, these last two days, and yet there's lots to say.

Apparently everything is at last settled as to the giveaway of L. A. L.,
and the papers will be signed and the transfer made to-morrow morning.

Meantime I have got the best and wisest man in the whole Standard Oil
group of mufti-millionaires a good deal interested in looking into the
type-setter (this is private, don't mention it.) He has been searching
into that thing for three weeks, and yesterday he said to me, "I find the
machine to be all you represented it--I have here exhaustive reports from
my own experts, and I know every detail of its capacity, its immense
value, its construction, cost, history, and all about its inventor's
character. I know that the New York Co. and the Chicago Co. are both
stupid, and that they are unbusinesslike people, destitute of money and
in a hopeless boggle."

Then he told me the scheme he had planned, then said: "If I can arrange
with these people on this basis--it will take several weeks to find out
--I will see to it that they get the money they need. Then the thing will
move right along and your royalties will cease to be waste paper. I will
post you the minute my scheme fails or succeeds. In the meantime, you
stop walking the floor. Go off to the country and try to be gay. You
may have to go to walking again, but don't begin till I tell you my
scheme has failed." And he added: "Keep me posted always as to where you
are--for if I need you and can use you--I want to know where to put my
hand on you."

If I should even divulge the fact that the Standard Oil is merely talking
remotely about going into the type-setter, it would send my royalties up.

With worlds and worlds of love and kisses to you all,
SAML.


With so great a burden of care shifted to the broad financial shoulders
of H. H. Rogers, Mark Twain's spirits went ballooning, soaring toward the
stars. He awoke, too, to some of the social gaieties about him, and
found pleasure in the things that in the hour of his gloom had seemed
mainly mockery. We find him going to a Sunday evening at Howells's, to
John Mackay's, and elsewhere.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris:

Dec. 2, '93.
LIVY DARLING,--Last night at John Mackay's the dinner consisted of soup,
raw oysters, corned beef and cabbage, and something like a custard.
I ate without fear or stint, and yet have escaped all suggestion of
indigestion. The men present were old gray Pacific-coasters whom I knew
when I and they were young and not gray. The talk was of the days when
we went gypsying a long time ago--thirty years. Indeed it was a talk of
the dead. Mainly that. And of how they looked, and the harum-scarum
things they did and said. For there were no cares in that life, no aches
and pains, and not time enough in the day (and three-fourths of the
night) to work off one's surplus vigor and energy. Of the mid-night
highway robbery joke played upon me with revolvers at my head on the
windswept and desolate Gold Hill Divide, no witness is left but me, the
victim. All the friendly robbers are gone. These old fools last night
laughed till they cried over the particulars of that old forgotten crime.

John Mackay has no family here but a pet monkey--a most affectionate and
winning little devil. But he makes trouble for the servants, for he is
full of curiosity and likes to take everything out of the drawers and
examine it minutely; and he puts nothing back. The examinations of
yesterday count for nothing to-day--he makes a new examination every day.
But he injures nothing.

I went with Laffan to the Racquet Club the other night and played,
billiards two hours without starting up any rheumatism. I suppose it was
all really taken out of me in Berlin.

Richard Harding Davis spoke yesterday of Clara's impersonations at Mrs.
Van Rensselaer's here and said they were a wonderful piece of work.

Livy dear, I do hope you are comfortable, as to quarters and food at the
Hotel Brighton. But if you're not don't stay there. Make one more
effort--don't give it up. Dear heart, this is from one who loves you
--which is Saml.


It was decided that Rogers and Clemens should make a trip to Chicago
to investigate personally the type-setter situation there. Clemens
reports the details of the excursion to Mrs. Clemens in a long
subdivided letter, most of which has no general interest and is here
omitted. The trip, as a whole, would seem to have been
satisfactory. The personal portions of the long Christmas letter
may properly be preserved.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris:

THE PLAYERS, Xmas, 1893.
No. 1.
Merry Xmas, my darling, and all my darlings! I arrived from Chicago
close upon midnight last night, and wrote and sent down my Christmas
cablegram before undressing: "Merry Xmas! Promising progress made in
Chicago." It would get to the telegraph office toward 8 this morning and
reach you at luncheon.

I was vaguely hoping, all the past week, that my Xmas cablegram would be
definite, and make you all jump with jubilation; but the thought always
intruded itself, "You are not going out there to negotiate with a man,
but with a louse. This makes results uncertain."

I was asleep as Christmas struck upon the clock at mid night, and didn't
wake again till two hours ago. It is now half past 10 Xmas morning; I
have had my coffee and bread, and shan't get out of bed till it is time
to dress for Mrs. Laflan's Christmas dinner this evening--where I shall
meet Bram Stoker and must make sure about that photo with Irving's
autograph. I will get the picture and he will attend to the rest. In
order to remember and not forget--well, I will go there with my dress
coat wrong side out; it will cause remark and then I shall remember.


No. 2 and 3.
I tell you it was interesting! The Chicago campaign, I mean. On the way
out Mr. Rogers would plan out the campaign while I walked the floor and
smoked and assented. Then he would close it up with a snap and drop it
and we would totally change the subject and take up the scenery, etc.

(Here follows the long detailed report of the Chicago conference, of
interest only to the parties directly concerned.)


No. 4.
We had nice tripe, going and coming. Mr. Rogers had telegraphed the
Pennsylvania Railroad for a couple of sections for us in the fast train
leaving at 2 p. m. the 22nd. The Vice President telegraphed back that
every berth was engaged (which was not true--it goes without saying) but
that he was sending his own car for us. It was mighty nice and
comfortable. In its parlor it had two sofas, which could become beds at
night. It had four comfortably-cushioned cane arm-chairs. It had a very
nice bedroom with a wide bed in it; which I said I would take because I
believed I was a little wider than Mr. Rogers--which turned out to be
true; so I took it. It had a darling back-porch--railed, roofed and
roomy; and there we sat, most of the time, and viewed the scenery and
talked, for the weather was May weather, and the soft dream-pictures of
hill and river and mountain and sky were clear and away beyond anything I
have ever seen for exquisiteness and daintiness.

The colored waiter knew his business, and the colored cook was a finished
artist. Breakfasts: coffee with real cream; beefsteaks, sausage, bacon,
chops, eggs in various ways, potatoes in various--yes, and quite
wonderful baked potatoes, and hot as fire. Dinners--all manner of
things, including canvas-back duck, apollinaris, claret, champagne, etc.

We sat up chatting till midnight, going and coming; seldom read a line,
day or night, though we were well fixed with magazines, etc.; then I
finished off with a hot Scotch and we went to bed and slept till 9.30 a.m.
I honestly tried to pay my share of hotel bills, fees, etc., but I was
not allowed--and I knew the reason why, and respected the motive. I will
explain when I see you, and then you will understand.

We were 25 hours going to Chicago; we were there 24 hours; we were 30
hours returning. Brisk work, but all of it enjoyable. We insisted on
leaving the car at Philadelphia so that our waiter and cook (to whom Mr.
R. gave $10 apiece,) could have their Christmas-eve at home.

Mr. Rogers's carriage was waiting for us in Jersey City and deposited me
at the Players. There--that's all. This letter is to make up for the
three letterless days. I love you, dear heart, I love you all.
SAML.




XXXIV

LETTERS 1894. A WINTER IN NEW YORK. BUSINESS FAILURE.
END OF THE MACHINE.

The beginning of the new year found Mark Twain sailing buoyantly on a
tide of optimism. He believed that with H. H. Rogers as his financial
pilot he could weather safely any storm or stress. He could divert
himself, or rest, or work, and consider his business affairs with
interest and amusement, instead of with haggard anxiety. He ran over to
Hartford to see an amateur play; to Boston to give a charity reading; to
Fair Haven to open the library which Mr. Rogers had established there; he
attended gay dinners, receptions, and late studio parties, acquiring the
name of the "Belle of New York." In the letters that follow we get the
echo of some of these things. The Mrs. Rice mentioned in the next brief
letter was the wife of Dr. Clarence C. Rice, who had introduced
H. H. Rogers to Mark Twain.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris:

Jan. 12, '94
Livy darling, I came down from Hartford yesterday with Kipling, and he
and Hutton and I had the small smoking compartment to ourselves and found
him at last at his ease, and not shy. He was very pleasant company
indeed. He is to be in the city a week, and I wish I could invite him to
dinner, but it won't do. I should be interrupted by business, of course.
The construction of a contract that will suit Paige's lawyer (not Paige)
turns out to be very difficult. He is embarrassed by earlier advice to
Paige, and hates to retire from it and stultify himself. The
negotiations are being conducted, by means of tedious long telegrams and
by talks over the long-distance telephone. We keep the wires loaded.

Dear me, dinner is ready. So Mrs. Rice says.

With worlds of love,
SAML.


Clemens and Oliver Wendell Holmes had met and become friends soon after
the publication of Innocents Abroad, in 1869. Now, twenty-five years
later, we find a record of what without doubt was their last meeting.
It occurred at the home of Mrs. James T. Field.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris:

BOSTON, Jan. 25, '94.
Livy darling, I am caught out worse this time than ever before, in the
matter of letters. Tuesday morning I was smart enough to finish and mail
my long letter to you before breakfast--for I was suspecting that I would
not have another spare moment during the day. It turned out just so.

In a thoughtless moment I agreed to come up here and read for the poor.
I did not reflect that it would cost me three days. I could not get
released. Yesterday I had myself called at 8 and ran out to Mr. Rogers's
house at 9, and talked business until half past 10; then caught 11
o'clock train and arrived here at 6; was shaven and dressed by 7 and
ready for dinner here in Mrs. Field's charming house.

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes never goes out now (he is in his 84th year,)
but he came out this time-said he wanted to "have a time" once more with
me.

Mrs. Fields said Aldrich begged to come and went away crying because she
wouldn't let him. She allowed only her family (Sarah Orne Jewett and
sister) to be present, because much company would overtax Dr. Holmes.

Well, he was just delightful! He did as brilliant and beautiful talking
(and listening) as ever he did in his life, I guess. Fields and Jewett
said he hadn't been in such splendid form in years. He had ordered his
carriage for 9.

The coachman sent in for him at 9; but he said, "Oh, nonsense!--leave
glories and grandeurs like these? Tell him to go away and come in an
hour!"

At 10 he was called for again, and Mrs. Fields, getting uneasy, rose, but
he wouldn't go--and so we rattled ahead the same as ever. Twice more
Mrs. Fields rose, but he wouldn't go--and he didn't go till half past 10
--an unwarrantable dissipation for him in these days. He was
prodigiously complimentary about some of my books, and is having
Pudd'nhead read to him. I told him you and I used the Autocrat as a
courting book and marked it all through, and that you keep it in the
sacred green box with the love letters, and it pleased him.

Good-bye, my dear darling, it is 15 minutes to dinner and I'm not dressed
yet. I have a reception to-night and will be out very late at that place
and at Irving's Theatre where I have a complimentary box. I wish you
were all here.
SAML.


In the next letter we meet James J. Corbett--"Gentleman Jim," as he
was sometimes called--the champion pugilist of that day.

The Howells incident so amusingly dramatized will perhaps be more
appreciated if the reader remembers that Mark Twain himself had at
intervals been a mind-healing enthusiast. Indeed, in spite of his
strictures on Mrs. Eddy, his interest in the subject of mind-cure
continued to the end of his life.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Paris:

Sunday, 9.30 a. m.
Livy dear, when we got out to the house last night, Mrs. Rogers, who is
up and around, now, didn't want to go down stairs to dinner, but Mr. R.
persuaded her and we had a very good time indeed. By 8 o'clock we were
down again and bought a fifteen-dollar box in the Madison Square Garden
(Rogers bought it, not I,) then he went and fetched Dr. Rice while I
(went) to the Players and picked up two artists--Reid and Simmons--and
thus we filled 5 of the 6 seats. There was a vast multitude of people in
the brilliant place. Stanford White came along presently and invited me
to go to the World-Champion's dressing room, which I was very glad to do.
Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being the
most perfectly and beautifully constructed human animal in the world.
I said:

"You have whipped Mitchell, and maybe you will whip Jackson in June--but
you are not done, then. You will have to tackle me."

He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in
earnest:

"No--I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is not fair or right to
require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no merit of your own,
but by a purely accidental blow; and then my reputation would be gone and
you would have a double one. You have got fame enough and you ought not
to want to take mine away from me."

Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank in San Francisco.

There were lots of little boxing matches, to entertain the crowd: then at
last Corbett appeared in the ring and the 8,000 people present went mad
with enthusiasm. My two artists went mad about his form. They said they
had never seen anything that came reasonably near equaling its perfection
except Greek statues, and they didn't surpass it.

Corbett boxed 3 rounds with the middle-weight Australian champion--oh,
beautiful to see!--then the show was over and we struggled out through a
perfect wash of humanity. When we reached the street I found I had left
my arctics in the box. I had to have them, so Simmons said he would go
back and get them, and I didn't dissuade him. I couldn't see how he was
going to make his way a single yard into that solid oncoming wave of
people--yet he must plow through it full 50 yards. He was back with the
shoes in 3 minutes!

How do you reckon he accomplished that miracle? By saying:

"Way, gentlemen, please--coming to fetch Mr. Corbett's overshoes."

The word flew from mouth to mouth, the Red Sea divided, and Simmons
walked comfortably through and back, dry shod. Simmons (this was
revealed to me under seal of secrecy by Reid) is the hero of "Gwen," and
he and Gwen's author were once engaged to marry. This is "fire-escape"
Simmons, the inveterate talker, you know: "Exit--in case of Simmons."