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Complete Letters of Mark Twain
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Complete Letters of Mark Twain

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With love to you all.

Sam.

Two days after this letter was written we get a hint of what was the beginning of business trouble – that is to say, of the failing health of Charles L. Webster. Webster was ambitious, nervous, and not robust. He had overworked and was paying the penalty. His trouble was neurasthenia, and he was presently obliged to retire altogether from the business. The “Sam and Mary” mentioned were Samuel Moffet and his wife.

*****

To Mrs. Pamela Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.

Elmira, July 12, ’87

My dear sister, – I had no idea that Charley’s case was so serious. I knew it was bad, and persistent, but I was not aware of the full size of the matter.

I have just been writing to a friend in Hartford’ who treated what I imagine was a similar case surgically last fall, and produced a permanent cure. If this is a like case, Charley must go to him.

If relief fails there, he must take the required rest, whether the business can stand it or not.

It is most pleasant to hear such prosperous accounts of Sam and Mary, I do not see how Sam could well be more advantageously fixed. He can grow up with that paper, and achieve a successful life.

It is not all holiday here with Susie and Clara this time. They have to put in some little time every day on their studies. Jean thinks she is studying too, but I don’t know what it is unless it is the horses; she spends the day under their heels in the stables – and that is but a continuation of her Hartford system of culture.

With love from us all to you all.

Affectionately,

Sam.

Mark Twain had a few books that he read regularly every year or two. Among these were ‘Pepys’s Diary’, Suetonius’s ’Lives of the Twelve Caesars’, and Thomas Carlyle’s ‘French Revolution’. He had a passion for history, biography, and personal memoirs of any sort. In his early life he had cared very little for poetry, but along in the middle eighties he somehow acquired a taste for Browning and became absorbed in it. A Browning club assembled as often as once a week at the Clemens home in Hartford to listen to his readings of the master. He was an impressive reader, and he carefully prepared himself for these occasions, indicating by graduated underscorings, the exact values he wished to give to words and phrases. Those were memorable gatherings, and they must have continued through at least two winters. It is one of the puzzling phases of Mark Twain’s character that, notwithstanding his passion for direct and lucid expression, he should have found pleasure in the poems of Robert Browning.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

Elmira, Aug. 22, ’87.

My dear Howells, – How stunning are the changes which age makes in a man while he sleeps. When I finished Carlyle’s French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it differently being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and environment (and Taine and St. Simon): and now I lay the book down once more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte! – And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. Carlyle teaches no such gospel so the change is in me – in my vision of the evidences.

People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it did at all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say that of Dickens’s or Scott’s books. Nothing remains the same. When a man goes back to look at the house of his childhood, it has always shrunk: there is no instance of such a house being as big as the picture in memory and imagination call for. Shrunk how? Why, to its correct dimensions: the house hasn’t altered; this is the first time it has been in focus.

Well, that’s loss. To have house and Bible shrink so, under the disillusioning corrected angle, is loss-for a moment. But there are compensations. You tilt the tube skyward and bring planets and comets and corona flames a hundred and fifty thousand miles high into the field. Which I see you have done, and found Tolstoi. I haven’t got him in focus yet, but I’ve got Browning….

Ys Ever,

Mark.

Mention has been made already of Mark Twain’s tendency to absentmindedness. He was always forgetting engagements, or getting them wrong. Once he hurried to an afternoon party, and finding the mistress of the house alone, sat down and talked to her comfortably for an hour or two, not remembering his errand at all. It was only when he reached home that he learned that the party had taken place the week before. It was always dangerous for him to make engagements, and he never seemed to profit by sorrowful experience. We, however, may profit now by one of his amusing apologies.

*****

To Mrs. Grover Cleveland, in Washington:

Hartford, Nov. 6, 1887.

My dear madam, – I do not know how it is in the White House, but in this house of ours whenever the minor half of the administration tries to run itself without the help of the major half it gets aground. Last night when I was offered the opportunity to assist you in the throwing open the Warner brothers superb benefaction in Bridgeport to those fortunate women, I naturally appreciated the honor done me, and promptly seized my chance. I had an engagement, but the circumstances washed it out of my mind. If I had only laid the matter before the major half of the administration on the spot, there would have been no blunder; but I never thought of that. So when I did lay it before her, later, I realized once more that it will not do for the literary fraction of a combination to try to manage affairs which properly belong in the office of the business bulk of it. I suppose the President often acts just like that: goes and makes an impossible promise, and you never find it out until it is next to impossible to break it up and set things straight again. Well, that is just our way, exactly-one half of the administration always busy getting the family into trouble, and the other half busy getting it out again. And so we do seem to be all pretty much alike, after all. The fact is, I had forgotten that we were to have a dinner party on that Bridgeport date – I thought it was the next day: which is a good deal of an improvement for me, because I am more used to being behind a day or two than ahead. But that is just the difference between one end of this kind of an administration and the other end of it, as you have noticed, yourself – the other end does not forget these things. Just so with a funeral; if it is the man’s funeral, he is most always there, of course – but that is no credit to him, he wouldn’t be there if you depended on him to remember about it; whereas, if on the other hand – but I seem to have got off from my line of argument somehow; never mind about the funeral. Of course I am not meaning to say anything against funerals – that is, as occasions – mere occasions – for as diversions I don’t think they amount to much But as I was saying – if you are not busy I will look back and see what it was I was saying.

I don’t seem to find the place; but anyway she was as sorry as ever anybody could be that I could not go to Bridgeport, but there was no help for it. And I, I have been not only sorry but very sincerely ashamed of having made an engagement to go without first making sure that I could keep it, and I do not know how to apologize enough for my heedless breach of good manners.

With the sincerest respect,

S. L. Clemens.

Samuel Clemens was one of the very few authors to copyright a book in England before the enactment of the international copyright law. As early as 1872 he copyrighted ‘Roughing It’ in England, and piratical publishers there respected his rights. Finally, in 1887, the inland revenue office assessed him with income tax, which he very willingly paid, instructing his London publishers, Chatto & Windus, to pay on the full amount he had received from them. But when the receipt for his taxes came it was nearly a yard square with due postage of considerable amount. Then he wrote:

*****

To Mr. Chatto, of Chatto & Windus, in London:

Hartford, Dec. 5, ’87.

My dear Chatto, – Look here, I don’t mind paying the tax, but don’t you let the Inland Revenue Office send me any more receipts for it, for the postage is something perfectly demoralizing. If they feel obliged to print a receipt on a horse-blanket, why don’t they hire a ship and send it over at their own expense?

Wasn’t it good that they caught me out with an old book instead of a new one? The tax on a new book would bankrupt a body. It was my purpose to go to England next May and stay the rest of the year, but I’ve found that tax office out just in time. My new book would issue in March, and they would tax the sale in both countries. Come, we must get up a compromise somehow. You go and work in on the good side of those revenue people and get them to take the profits and give me the tax. Then I will come over and we will divide the swag and have a good time.

I wish you to thank Mr. Christmas for me; but we won’t resist. The country that allows me copyright has a right to tax me.

Sincerely Yours,

S. L. Clemens.

Another English tax assessment came that year, based on the report that it was understood that he was going to become an English resident, and had leased Buckenham Hall, Norwich, for a year. Clemens wrote his publishers: “I will explain that all that about Buckenham Hall was an English newspaper’s mistake. I was not in England, and if I had been I wouldn’t have been at Buckenham Hall, anyway, but at Buckingham Palace, or I would have endeavored to find out the reason why.” Clemens made literature out of this tax experience. He wrote an open letter to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Such a letter has no place in this collection. It was published in the “Drawer” of Harper’s Magazine, December, 1887, and is now included in the uniform edition of his works under the title of, “A Petition to the Queen of England.”

From the following letter, written at the end of the year, we gather that the type-setter costs were beginning to make a difference in the Clemens economies.

*****

To Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia:

Hartford, Dec. 18, ’87.

Dear Pamela, – will you take this $15 and buy some candy or some other trifle for yourself and Sam and his wife to remember that we remember you, by?

If we weren’t a little crowded this year by the typesetter, I’d send a check large enough to buy a family Bible or some other useful thing like that. However we go on and on, but the type-setter goes on forever – at $3,000 a month; which is much more satisfactory than was the case the first seventeen months, when the bill only averaged $2,000, and promised to take a thousand years. We’ll be through, now, in 3 or 4 months, I reckon, and then the strain will let up and we can breathe freely once more, whether success ensues or failure.

Even with a type-setter on hand we ought not to be in the least scrimped – but it would take a long letter to explain why and who is to blame.

All the family send love to all of you and best Christmas wishes for your prosperity.

Affectionately,

Sam.

XXVIII. Letters,1888. A Yale Degree. Work On “The Yankee.” On Interviewing, etc

Mark Twain received his first college degree when he was made Master of Arts by Yale, in June, 1888. Editor of the Courant, Charles H. Clarke, was selected to notify him of his new title. Clarke was an old friend to whom Clemens could write familiarly.

*****

To Charles H. Clarke, in Hartford:

Elmira, July 2, ’88.

My dear Charles, – Thanks for your thanks, and for your initiation intentions. I shall be ready for you. I feel mighty proud of that degree; in fact, I could squeeze the truth a little closer and say vain of it. And why shouldn’t I be? – I am the only literary animal of my particular subspecies who has ever been given a degree by any College in any age of the world, as far as I know.

Sincerely Yours,

S. L. Clemens M. A.

Reply: Charles H. Clarke to S. L Clemens:

My dear friend, You are “the only literary animal of your particular subspecies” in existence and you’ve no cause for humility in the fact. Yale has done herself at least as much credit as she has done you, and “Don’t you forget it.”

C. H. C.

With the exception of his brief return to the river in 1882. Mark Twain had been twenty-seven years away from pilots and piloting. Nevertheless, he always kept a tender place in his heart for the old times and for old river comrades. Major “Jack” Downing had been a Mississippi pilot of early days, but had long since retired from the river to a comfortable life ashore, in an Ohio town. Clemens had not heard from him for years when a letter came which invited the following answer.

*****

To Major “Jack” Downing, in Middleport Ohio:

Elmira, N. Y.(no month) 1888.

Dear major, – And has it come to this that the dead rise up and speak? For I supposed that you were dead, it has been so long since I heard your name.

And how young you’ve grown! I was a mere boy when I knew you on the river, where you had been piloting for 35 years, and now you are only a year and a half older than I am! I mean to go to Hot Springs myself and get 30 or 40 years knocked off my age. It’s manifestly the place that Ponce de Leon was striking for, but the poor fellow lost the trail.

Possibly I may see you, for I shall be in St. Louis a day or two in November. I propose to go down the river and “note the changes” once more before I make the long crossing, and perhaps you can come there. Will you? I want to see all the boys that are left alive.

And so Grant Marsh, too, is flourishing yet? A mighty good fellow, and smart too. When we were taking that wood flat down to the Chambers, which was aground, I soon saw that I was a perfect lubber at piloting such a thing. I saw that I could never hit the Chambers with it, so I resigned in Marsh’s favor, and he accomplished the task to my admiration. We should all have gone to the mischief if I had remained in authority. I always had good judgement, more judgement than talent, in fact.

No; the nom de plume did not originate in that way. Capt. Sellers used the signature, “Mark Twain,” himself, when he used to write up the antiquities in the way of river reminiscences for the New Orleans Picayune. He hated me for burlesquing them in an article in the True Delta; so four years later when he died, I robbed the corpse – that is I confiscated the nom de plume. I have published this vital fact 3,000 times now. But no matter, it is good practice; it is about the only fact that I can tell the same way every time. Very glad, indeed, to hear from you Major, and shall be gladder still to see you in November.

Truly yours,

S. L. Clemens.

He did not make the journey down the river planned for that year. He had always hoped to make another steamboat trip with Bixby, but one thing and another interfered and he did not go again.

Authors were always sending their books to Mark Twain to read, and no busy man was ever more kindly disposed toward such offerings, more generously considerate of the senders. Louis Pendleton was a young unknown writer in 1888, but Clemens took time to read his story carefully, and to write to him about it a letter that cost precious time, thought, and effort. It must have rejoiced the young man’s heart to receive a letter like that, from one whom all young authors held supreme.

*****

To Louis Pendleton, in Georgia:

Elmira, N. Y., Aug. 4, ’88.

My dear sir, – I found your letter an hour ago among some others which had lain forgotten a couple of weeks, and I at once stole time enough to read Ariadne. Stole is the right word, for the summer “Vacation” is the only chance I get for work; so, no minute subtracted from work is borrowed, it is stolen. But this time I do not repent. As a rule, people don’t send me books which I can thank them for, and so I say nothing – which looks uncourteous. But I thank you. Ariadne is a beautiful and satisfying story; and true, too – which is the best part of a story; or indeed of any other thing. Even liars have to admit that, if they are intelligent liars; I mean in their private[34] intervals. (I struck that word out because a man’s private thought can never be a lie; what he thinks, is to him the truth, always; what he speaks – but these be platitudes.)

If you want me to pick some flaws – very well – but I do it unwillingly. I notice one thing – which one may notice also in my books, and in all books whether written by man or God: trifling carelessness of statement or Expression. If I think that you meant that she took the lizard from the water which she had drawn from the well, it is evidence – it is almost proof – that your words were not as clear as they should have been. True, it is only a trifling thing; but so is mist on a mirror. I would have hung the pail on Ariadne’s arm. You did not deceive me when you said that she carried it under her arm, for I knew she didn’t; still it was not your right to mar my enjoyment of the graceful picture. If the pail had been a portfolio, I wouldn’t be making these remark. The engraver of a fine picture revises, and revises, and revises – and then revises, and revises, and revises; and then repeats. And always the charm of that picture grows, under his hand. It was good enough before – told its story, and was beautiful. True: and a lovely girl is lovely, with freckles; but she isn’t at her level best with them.

This is not hypercriticism; you have had training enough to know that.

So much concerning exactness of statement. In that other not-small matter – selection of the exact single word – you are hard to catch. Still, I should hold that Mrs. Walker considered that there was no occasion for concealment; that “motive” implied a deeper mental search than she expended on the matter; that it doesn’t reflect the attitude of her mind with precision. Is this hypercriticism? I shan’t dispute it. I only say, that if Mrs. Walker didn’t go so far as to have a motive, I had to suggest that when a word is so near the right one that a body can’t quite tell whether it is or isn’t, it’s good politics to strike it out and go for the Thesaurus. That’s all. Motive may stand; but you have allowed a snake to scream, and I will not concede that that was the best word.

I do not apologize for saying these things, for they are not said in the speck-hunting spirit, but in the spirit of want-to-help-if-I-can. They would be useful to me if said to me once a month, they may be useful to you, said once.

I save the other stories for my real vacation – which is nine months long, to my sorrow. I thank you again.

Truly Yours,

S. L. Clemens.

In the next letter we get a sidelight on the type-setting machine, the Frankenstein monster that was draining their substance and holding out false hopes of relief and golden return. The program here outlined was one that would continue for several years yet, with the end always in sight, but never quite attained.

*****

To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Ia.:

Oct. 3, ’88.

Private.

Saturday 29th, by a closely calculated estimate, there were 85 days’ work to do on the machine.

We can use 4 men, but not constantly. If they could work constantly it would complete the machine in 21 days, of course. They will all be on hand and under wages, and each will get in all the work there is opportunity for, but by how much they can reduce the 85 days toward the 21 days, nobody can tell.

*****

To-day I pay Pratt & Whitney $10,000. This squares back indebtedness and everything to date. They began about May or April or March 1886—along there somewhere, and have always kept from a dozen to two dozen master-hands on the machine.

That outgo is done; 4 men for a month or two will close up that leak and caulk it. Work on the patents is also kind of drawing toward a conclusion.

Love to you both. All well here.

And give our love to Ma if she can get the idea.

Sam.

Mark Twain that year was working pretty steadily on ’The Yankee at King Arthur’s Court’, a book which he had begun two years before. He had published nothing since the Huck Finn story, and his company was badly in need of a new book by an author of distinction. Also it was highly desirable to earn money for himself; wherefore he set to work to finish the Yankee story. He had worked pretty steadily that summer in his Elmira study, but on his return to Hartford found a good deal of confusion in the house, so went over to Twichell’s, where carpenter work was in progress. He seems to have worked there successfully, though what improvement of conditions he found in that numerous, lively household, over those at home it would be difficult to say.

*****

To Theodore W. Crane, at Quarry Farm, Elmira, N. Y.

Friday, Oct.,5, ’88.

Dear Theo, – I am here in Twichell’s house at work, with the noise of the children and an army of carpenters to help. Of course they don’t help, but neither do they hinder. It’s like a boiler-factory for racket, and in nailing a wooden ceiling onto the room under me the hammering tickles my feet amazingly sometimes, and jars my table a good deal; but I never am conscious of the racket at all, and I move my feet into position of relief without knowing when I do it. I began here Monday morning, and have done eighty pages since. I was so tired last night that I thought I would lie abed and rest, to-day; but I couldn’t resist. I mean to try to knock off tomorrow, but it’s doubtful if I do. I want to finish the day the machine finishes, and a week ago the closest calculations for that indicated Oct. 22—but experience teaches me that their calculations will miss fire, as usual.

The other day the children were projecting a purchase, Livy and I to furnish the money – a dollar and a half. Jean discouraged the idea. She said: “We haven’t got any money. Children, if you would think, you would remember the machine isn’t done.”

It’s billiards to-night. I wish you were here.

With love to you both,

S. L. C.

P. S. I got it all wrong. It wasn’t the children, it was Marie. She wanted a box of blacking, for the children’s shoes. Jean reproved her – and said:

“Why, Marie, you mustn’t ask for things now. The machine isn’t done.”

S. L. C.

The letter that follows is to another of his old pilot friends, one who was also a schoolmate, Will Bowen, of Hannibal. There is today no means of knowing the occasion upon which this letter was written, but it does not matter; it is the letter itself that is of chief value.

*****

To Will Bowen, in Hannibal, Mo.:

Hartford, Nov 4, ’88.

Dear will, – I received your letter yesterday evening, just as I was starting out of town to attend a wedding, and so my mind was privately busy, all the evening, in the midst of the maelstrom of chat and chaff and laughter, with the sort of reflections which create themselves, examine themselves, and continue themselves, unaffected by surroundings – unaffected, that is understood, by the surroundings, but not uninfluenced by them. Here was the near presence of the two supreme events of life: marriage, which is the beginning of life, and death which is the end of it. I found myself seeking chances to shirk into corners where I might think, undisturbed; and the most I got out of my thought, was this: both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it. A long procession of people filed through my mind – people whom you and I knew so many years ago – so many centuries ago, it seems like-and these ancient dead marched to the soft marriage music of a band concealed in some remote room of the house; and the contented music and the dreaming shades seemed in right accord with each other, and fitting. Nobody else knew that a procession of the dead was passing though this noisy swarm of the living, but there it was, and to me there was nothing uncanny about it; Rio, they were welcome faces to me. I would have liked to bring up every creature we knew in those days – even the dumb animals – it would be bathing in the fabled Fountain of Youth.

We all feel your deep trouble with you; and we would hope, if we might, but your words deny us that privilege. To die one’s self is a thing that must be easy, and of light consequence, but to lose a part of one’s self – well, we know how deep that pang goes, we who have suffered that disaster, received that wound which cannot heal.

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