The Letters Of Mark Twain, Volume 3

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The Letters Of Mark Twain, Volume 3


(Mem. Orion's wife has followed him into the outer darkness, after 30
years' rabid membership in the Presbyterian Church.)

Well, with the sincerest and most abounding love to you and yours, from
all this family, I am,
Yrs ever
MARK.


The idea of the play interested Howells, but he had twinges of
conscience in the matter of using Orion as material. He wrote:
"More than once I have taken the skeleton of that comedy of ours and
viewed it with tears..... I really have a compunction or two about
helping to put your brother into drama. You can say that he is your
brother, to do what you like with him, but the alien hand might
inflict an incurable hurt on his tender heart."

As a matter of fact, Orion Clemens had a keen appreciation of his
own shortcomings, and would have enjoyed himself in a play as much
as any observer of it. Indeed, it is more than likely that he would
have been pleased at the thought of such distinguished
dramatization. From the next letter one might almost conclude that
he had received a hint of this plan, and was bent upon supplying
rich material.


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Oct. 9 '79.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Since my return, the mail facilities have enabled Orion
to keep me informed as to his intentions. Twenty-eight days ago it was
his purpose to complete a work aimed at religion, the preface to which he
had already written. Afterward he began to sell off his furniture, with
the idea of hurrying to Leadville and tackling silver-mining--threw up
his law den and took in his sign. Then he wrote to Chicago and St. Louis
newspapers asking for a situation as "paragrapher"--enclosing a taste of
his quality in the shape of two stanzas of "humorous rhymes." By a later
mail on the same day he applied to New York and Hartford insurance
companies for copying to do.

However, it would take too long to detail all his projects. They
comprise a removal to south-west Missouri; application for a reporter's
berth on a Keokuk paper; application for a compositor's berth on a St.
Louis paper; a re-hanging of his attorney's sign, "though it only creaks
and catches no flies;" but last night's letter informs me that he has
retackled the religious question, hired a distant den to write in,
applied to my mother for $50 to re-buy his furniture, which has advanced
in value since the sale--purposes buying $25 worth of books necessary to
his labors which he had previously been borrowing, and his first chapter
is already on its way to me for my decision as to whether it has enough
ungodliness in it or not. Poor Orion!

Your letter struck me while I was meditating a project to beguile you,
and John Hay and Joe Twichell, into a descent upon Chicago which I dream
of making, to witness the re-union of the great Commanders of the Western
Army Corps on the 9th of next month. My sluggish soul needs a fierce
upstirring, and if it would not get it when Grant enters the meeting
place I must doubtless "lay" for the final resurrection. Can you and Hay
go? At the same time, confound it, I doubt if I can go myself, for this
book isn't done yet. But I would give a heap to be there. I mean to
heave some holiness into the Hartford primaries when I go back; and if
there was a solitary office in the land which majestic ignorance and
incapacity, coupled with purity of heart, could fill, I would run for it.
This naturally reminds me of Bret Harte--but let him pass.

We propose to leave here for New York Oct. 21, reaching Hartford 24th or
25th. If, upon reflection, you Howellses find, you can stop over here on
your way, I wish you would do it, and telegraph me. Getting pretty
hungry to see you. I had an idea that this was your shortest way home,
but like as not my geography is crippled again--it usually is.
Yrs ever
MARK.


The "Reunion of the Great Commanders," mentioned in the foregoing,
was a welcome to General Grant after his journey around the world.
Grant's trip had been one continuous ovation--a triumphal march.
In '79 most of his old commanders were still alive, and they had
planned to assemble in Chicago to do him honor. A Presidential year
was coming on, but if there was anything political in the project
there were no surface indications. Mark Twain, once a Confederate
soldier, had long since been completely "desouthernized"--at least
to the point where he felt that the sight of old comrades paying
tribute to the Union commander would stir his blood as perhaps it
had not been stirred, even in that earlier time, when that same
commander had chased him through the Missouri swamps. Grant,
indeed, had long since become a hero to Mark Twain, though it is
highly unlikely that Clemens favored the idea of a third term. Some
days following the preceding letter an invitation came for him to be
present at the Chicago reunion; but by this time he had decided not
to go. The letter he wrote has been preserved.


To Gen. William E. Strong, in Chicago:

FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD.
Oct. 28, 1879.
GEN. WM. E. STRONG, CH'M,
AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE:

I have been hoping during several weeks that it might be my good fortune
to receive an invitation to be present on that great occasion in Chicago;
but now that my desire is accomplished my business matters have so shaped
themselves as to bar me from being so far from home in the first half of
November. It is with supreme regret that I lost this chance, for I have
not had a thorough stirring up for some years, and I judged that if I
could be in the banqueting hall and see and hear the veterans of the Army
of the Tennessee at the moment that their old commander entered the room,
or rose in his place to speak, my system would get the kind of upheaval
it needs. General Grant's progress across the continent is of the
marvelous nature of the returning Napoleon's progress from Grenoble to
Paris; and as the crowning spectacle in the one case was the meeting with
the Old Guard, so, likewise, the crowning spectacle in the other will be
our great captain's meeting with his Old Guard--and that is the very
climax which I wanted to witness.

Besides, I wanted to see the General again, any way, and renew the
acquaintance. He would remember me, because I was the person who did not
ask him for an office. However, I consume your time, and also wander
from the point--which is, to thank you for the courtesy of your
invitation, and yield up my seat at the table to some other guest who may
possibly grace it better, but will certainly not appreciate its
privileges more, than I should.
With great respect,
I am, Gentlemen,
Very truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

Private:--I beg to apologize for my delay, gentlemen, but the card of
invitation went to Elmira, N. Y. and hence has only just now reached me.


This letter was not sent. He reconsidered and sent an acceptance,
agreeing to speak, as the committee had requested. Certainly there
was something picturesque in the idea of the Missouri private who
had been chased for a rainy fortnight through the swamps of Ralls
County being selected now to join in welcome to his ancient enemy.

The great reunion was to be something more than a mere banquet. It
would continue for several days, with processions, great
assemblages, and much oratory.

Mark Twain arrived in Chicago in good season to see it all. Three
letters to Mrs. Clemens intimately present his experiences: his
enthusiastic enjoyment and his own personal triumph.

The first was probably written after the morning of his arrival.
The Doctor Jackson in it was Dr. A. Reeves Jackson, the
guide-dismaying "Doctor" of Innocents Abroad.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:

PALMER HOUSE, CHICAGO, Nov. 11.
Livy darling, I am getting a trifle leg-weary. Dr. Jackson called and
dragged me out of bed at noon, yesterday, and then went off. I went down
stairs and was introduced to some scores of people, and among them an
elderly German gentleman named Raster, who said his wife owed her life to
me--hurt in Chicago fire and lay menaced with death a long time, but the
Innocents Abroad kept her mind in a cheerful attitude, and so, with the
doctor's help for the body she pulled through.... They drove me to Dr.
Jackson's and I had an hour's visit with Mrs. Jackson. Started to walk
down Michigan Avenue, got a few steps on my way and met an erect,
soldierly looking young gentleman who offered his hand; said, "Mr.
Clemens, I believe--I wish to introduce myself--you were pointed out to
me yesterday as I was driving down street--my name is Grant."

"Col. Fred Grant?"

"Yes. My house is not ten steps away, and I would like you to come and
have a talk and a pipe, and let me introduce my wife."

So we turned back and entered the house next to Jackson's and talked
something more than an hour and smoked many pipes and had a sociable good
time. His wife is very gentle and intelligent and pretty, and they have
a cunning little girl nearly as big as Bay but only three years old.
They wanted me to come in and spend an evening, after the banquet, with
them and Gen. Grant, after this grand pow-wow is over, but I said I was
going home Friday. Then they asked me to come Friday afternoon, when
they and the general will receive a few friends, and I said I would.
Col. Grant said he and Gen. Sherman used the Innocents Abroad as their
guide book when they were on their travels.

I stepped in next door and took Dr. Jackson to the hotel and we played
billiards from 7 to 11.30 P.M. and then went to a beer-mill to meet some
twenty Chicago journalists--talked, sang songs and made speeches till 6
o'clock this morning. Nobody got in the least degree "under the
influence," and we had a pleasant time. Read awhile in bed, slept till
11, shaved, went to breakfast at noon, and by mistake got into the
servants' hall. I remained there and breakfasted with twenty or thirty
male and female servants, though I had a table to myself.

A temporary structure, clothed and canopied with flags, has been erected
at the hotel front, and connected with the second-story windows of a
drawing-room. It was for Gen. Grant to stand on and review the
procession. Sixteen persons, besides reporters, had tickets for this
place, and a seventeenth was issued for me. I was there, looking down on
the packed and struggling crowd when Gen. Grant came forward and was
saluted by the cheers of the multitude and the waving of ladies'
handkerchiefs--for the windows and roofs of all neighboring buildings
were massed full of life. Gen. Grant bowed to the people two or three
times, then approached my side of the platform and the mayor pulled me
forward and introduced me. It was dreadfully conspicuous. The General
said a word or so--I replied, and then said, "But I'll step back,
General, I don't want to interrupt your speech."

"But I'm not going to make any--stay where you are--I'll get you to make
it for me."

General Sherman came on the platform wearing the uniform of a full
General, and you should have heard the cheers. Gen. Logan was going to
introduce me, but I didn't want any more conspicuousness.

When the head of the procession passed it was grand to see Sheridan, in
his military cloak and his plumed chapeau, sitting as erect and rigid as
a statue on his immense black horse--by far the most martial figure I
ever saw. And the crowd roared again.

It was chilly, and Gen. Deems lent me his overcoat until night. He came
a few minutes ago--5.45 P.M., and got it, but brought Gen. Willard, who
lent me his for the rest of my stay, and will get another for himself
when he goes home to dinner. Mine is much too heavy for this warm
weather.

I have a seat on the stage at Haverley's Theatre, tonight, where the Army
of the Tennessee will receive Gen. Grant, and where Gen. Sherman will
make a speech. At midnight I am to attend a meeting of the Owl Club.

I love you ever so much, my darling, and am hoping to
get a word from you yet.
SAML.


Following the procession, which he describes, came the grand
ceremonies of welcome at Haverley's Theatre. The next letter is
written the following morning, or at least soiree time the following
day, after a night of ratification.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:

CHICAGO, Nov. 12, '79.
Livy darling, it was a great time. There were perhaps thirty people on
the stage of the theatre, and I think I never sat elbow-to-elbow with so
many historic names before. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, Pope,
Logan, Augur, and so on. What an iron man Grant is! He sat facing the
house, with his right leg crossed over his left and his right boot-sole
tilted up at an angle, and his left hand and arm reposing on the arm of
his chair--you note that position? Well, when glowing references were
made to other grandees on the stage, those grandees always showed a
trifle of nervous consciousness--and as these references came frequently,
the nervous change of position and attitude were also frequent. But
Grant!--he was under a tremendous and ceaseless bombardment of praise and
gratulation, but as true as I'm sitting here he never moved a muscle of
his body for a single instant, during 30 minutes! You could have played
him on a stranger for an effigy. Perhaps he never would have moved, but
at last a speaker made such a particularly ripping and blood-stirring
remark about him that the audience rose and roared and yelled and stamped
and clapped an entire minute--Grant sitting as serene as ever--when Gen.
Sherman stepped to him, laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder,
bent respectfully down and whispered in his ear. Gen. Grant got up and
bowed, and the storm of applause swelled into a hurricane. He sat down,
took about the same position and froze to it till by and by there was
another of those deafening and protracted roars, when Sherman made him
get up and bow again. He broke up his attitude once more--the extent of
something more than a hair's breadth--to indicate me to Sherman when the
house was keeping up a determined and persistent call for me, and poor
bewildered Sherman, (who did not know me), was peering abroad over the
packed audience for me, not knowing I was only three feet from him and
most conspicuously located, (Gen. Sherman was Chairman.)

One of the most illustrious individuals on that stage was "Ole Abe," the
historic war eagle. He stood on his perch--the old savage-eyed rascal
--three or four feet behind Gen. Sherman, and as he had been in nearly
every battle that was mentioned by the orators his soul was probably
stirred pretty often, though he was too proud to let on.

Read Logan's bosh, and try to imagine a burly and magnificent Indian, in
General's uniform, striking a heroic attitude and getting that stuff off
in the style of a declaiming school-boy.

Please put the enclosed scraps in the drawer and I will scrap-book them.

I only staid at the Owl Club till 3 this morning and drank little or
nothing. Went to sleep without whisky. Ich liebe dish.

SAML.


But it is in the third letter that we get the climax. On the same
day he wrote a letter to Howells, which, in part, is very similar in
substance and need not be included here.

A paragraph, however, must not be omitted.

"Imagine what it was like to see a bullet-shredded old battle-flag
reverently unfolded to the gaze of a thousand middle-aged soldiers,
most of whom hadn't seen it since they saw it advancing over
victorious fields, when they were in their prime. And imagine what
it was like when Grant, their first commander, stepped into view
while they were still going mad over the flag, and then right in the
midst of it all somebody struck up, 'When we were marching through
Georgia.' Well, you should have heard the thousand voices lift that
chorus and seen the tears stream down. If I live a hundred years I
shan't ever forget these things, nor be able to talk about them ....
Grand times, my boy, grand times!"

At the great banquet Mark Twain's speech had been put last on the
program, to hold the house. He had been invited to respond to the
toast of "The Ladies," but had replied that he had already responded
to that toast more than once. There was one class of the community,
he said, commonly overlooked on these occasions--the babies--he
would respond to that toast. In his letter to Howells he had not
been willing to speak freely of his personal triumph, but to Mrs.
Clemens he must tell it all, and with that child-like ingenuousness
which never failed him to his last day.


To Mrs. Clemens, in Hartford:

CHICAGO, Nov. 14 '79.
A little after 5 in the morning.

I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable
night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born.
I heard four speeches which I can never forget. One by Emory Storrs, one
by Gen. Vilas (O, wasn't it wonderful!) one by Gen. Logan (mighty
stirring), one by somebody whose name escapes me, and one by that
splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll,--oh, it was just the supremest
combination of English words that was ever put together since the world
began. My soul, how handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in
the midst of those 500 shouting men, and poured the molten silver from
his lips! Lord, what an organ is human speech when it is played by a
master! All these speeches may look dull in print, but how the lightning
glared around them when they were uttered, and how the crowd roared in
response! It was a great night, a memorable night. I am so richly
repaid for my journey--and how I did wish with all my whole heart that
you were there to be lifted into the very seventh heaven of enthusiasm,
as I was. The army songs, the military music, the crashing applause
--Lord bless me, it was unspeakable.

Out of compliment they placed me last in the list--No. 15--I was to "hold
the crowd"--and bless my life I was in awful terror when No. 14. rose,
at a o'clock this morning and killed all the enthusiasm by delivering the
flattest, insipidest, silliest of all responses to "Woman" that ever a
weary multitude listened to. Then Gen. Sherman (Chairman) announced my
toast, and the crowd gave me a good round of applause as I mounted on top
of the dinner table, but it was only on account of my name, nothing more
--they were all tired and wretched. They let my first sentence go in.
silence, till I paused and added "we stand on common ground"--then they
burst forth like a hurricane and I saw that I had them! From that time
on, I stopped at the end of each sentence, and let the tornado of
applause and laughter sweep around me--and when I closed with "And if the
child is but the prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt
that he succeeded," I say it who oughtn't to say it, the house came down
with a crash. For two hours and a half, now, I've been shaking hands and
listening to congratulations. Gen. Sherman said, "Lord bless you, my
boy, I don't know how you do it--it's a secret that's beyond me--but it
was great--give me your hand again."

And do you know, Gen. Grant sat through fourteen speeches like a graven
image, but I fetched him! I broke him up, utterly! He told me he
laughed till the tears came and every bone in his body ached. (And do
you know, the biggest part of the success of the speech lay in the fact
that the audience saw that for once in his life he had been knocked out
of his iron serenity.)

Bless your soul, 'twas immense. I never was so proud in my life. Lots
and lots of people--hundreds I might say--told me my speech was the
triumph of the evening--which was a lie. Ladies, Tom, Dick and Harry
--even the policemen--captured me in the halls and shook hands, and
scores of army officers said "We shall always be grateful to you for
coming." General Pope came to bunt me up--I was afraid to speak to him on
that theatre stage last night, thinking it might be presumptuous to
tackle a man so high up in military history. Gen. Schofield, and other
historic men, paid their compliments. Sheridan was ill and could not
come, but I'm to go with a General of his staff and see him before I go
to Col. Grant's. Gen. Augur--well, I've talked with them all, received
invitations from them all--from people living everywhere--and as I said
before, it's a memorable night. I wouldn't have missed it for anything
in the world.

But my sakes, you should have heard Ingersoll's speech on that table!
Half an hour ago he ran across me in the crowded halls and put his arms
about me and said "Mark, if I live a hundred years, I'll always be
grateful for your speech--Lord what a supreme thing it was." But I told
him it wasn't any use to talk, he had walked off with the honors of that
occasion by something of a majority. Bully boy is Ingersoll--traveled
with him in the cars the other day, and you can make up your mind we had
a good time.

Of course I forgot to go and pay for my hotel car and so secure it, but
the army officers told me an hour ago to rest easy, they would go at
once, at this unholy hour of the night and compel the railways to do
their duty by me, and said "You don't need to request the Army of the
Tennessee to do your desires--you can command its services."

Well, I bummed around that banquet hall from 8 in the evening till 2 in
the morning, talking with people and listening to speeches, and I never
ate a single bite or took a sup of anything but ice water, so if I seem
excited now, it is the intoxication of supreme enthusiasm. By George, it
was a grand night, a historical night.

And now it is a quarter past 6 A.M.--so good bye and God bless you and
the Bays,--[Family word for babies]--my darlings

SAML.


Show it to Joe if you want to--I saw some of his friends here.

Mark Twain's admiration for Robert Ingersoll was very great, and we may
believe that he was deeply impressed by the Chicago speech, when we find
him, a few days later, writing to Ingersoll for a perfect copy to read to
a young girls' club in Hartford. Ingersoll sent the speech, also some of
his books, and the next letter is Mark Twain's acknowledgment.


To Col. Robert G. Ingersoll:

HARTFORD, Dec. 14.
MY DEAR INGERSOLL,--Thank you most heartily for the books--I am devouring
them--they have found a hungry place, and they content it and satisfy it
to a miracle. I wish I could hear you speak these splendid chapters
before a great audience--to read them by myself and hear the boom of the
applause only in the ear of my imagination, leaves a something wanting
--and there is also a still greater lack, your manner, and voice, and
presence.

The Chicago speech arrived an hour too late, but I was all right anyway,
for I found that my memory had been able to correct all the errors.
I read it to the Saturday Club (of young girls) and told them to remember
that it was doubtful if its superior existed in our language.
Truly Yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.


The reader may remember Mark Twain's Whittier dinner speech of 1877,
and its disastrous effects. Now, in 1879, there was to be another
Atlantic gathering: a breakfast to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, to
which Clemens was invited. He was not eager to accept; it would
naturally recall memories of two years before, but being urged by
both Howells and Warner, he agreed to attend if they would permit
him to speak. Mark Twain never lacked courage and he wanted to
redeem himself. To Howells he wrote:


To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Nov. 28, 1879.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--If anybody talks, there, I shall claim the right to say
a word myself, and be heard among the very earliest--else it would be
confoundedly awkward for me--and for the rest, too. But you may read
what I say, beforehand, and strike out whatever you choose.