Mark Twain had a lingering attack of the dramatic fever that
winter. He made a play of the Prince and Pauper, which
Howells pronounced “too thin and slight and not half long
enough.” He made another of Tom Sawyer, and probably
destroyed it, for no trace of the MS. exists to-day. Howells
could not join in these ventures, for he was otherwise
occupied and had sickness in his household.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Jan. 7, '84.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,—“O my goodn's”, as Jean says. You have now encountered at last the heaviest calamity that can befall an author. The scarlet fever, once domesticated, is a permanent member of the family. Money may desert you, friends forsake you, enemies grow indifferent to you, but the scarlet fever will be true to you, through thick and thin, till you be all saved or damned, down to the last one. I say these things to cheer you.
The bare suggestion of scarlet fever in the family makes me shudder; I believe I would almost rather have Osgood publish a book for me.
You folks have our most sincere sympathy. Oh, the intrusion of this hideous disease is an unspeakable disaster.
My billiard table is stacked up with books relating to the Sandwich Islands: the walls axe upholstered with scraps of paper penciled with notes drawn from them. I have saturated myself with knowledge of that unimaginably beautiful land and that most strange and fascinating people. And I have begun a story. Its hidden motive will illustrate a but-little considered fact in human nature; that the religious folly you are born in you will die in, no matter what apparently reasonabler religious folly may seem to have taken its place meanwhile, and abolished and obliterated it. I start Bill Ragsdale at 12 years of age, and the heroine at 4, in the midst of the ancient idolatrous system, with its picturesque and amazing customs and superstitions, 3 months before the arrival of the missionaries and the erection of a shallow Christianity upon the ruins of the old paganism. Then these two will become educated Christians, and highly civilized.
And then I will jump 15 years, and do Ragsdale's leper business. When we came to dramatize, we can draw a deal of matter from the story, all ready to our hand.
Yrs Ever
MARK.
He never finished the Sandwich Islands story which he and Howells
were to dramatize later. His head filled up with other projects,
such as publishing plans, reading-tours, and the like. The
type-setting machine does not appear in the letters of this period,
but it was an important factor, nevertheless. It was costing
several thousand dollars a month for construction and becoming
a heavy drain on Mark Twain's finances. It was necessary to
recuperate, and the anxiety for a profitable play, or some other
adventure that would bring a quick and generous return, grew out
of this need.
Clemens had established Charles L. Webster, his nephew by marriage,
in a New York office, as selling agent for the Mississippi book and
for his plays. He was also planning to let Webster publish the new
book, Huck Finn.
George W. Cable had proven his ability as a reader, and Clemens saw
possibilities in a reading combination, which was first planned to
include Aldrich, and Howells, and a private car.
But Aldrich and Howells did not warm to the idea, and the car was
eliminated from the plan. Cable came to visit Clemens in Hartford,
and was taken with the mumps, so that the reading-trip was
postponed.
The fortunes of the Sellers play were most uncertain and becoming
daily more doubtful. In February, Howells wrote: “If you have got
any comfort in regard to our play I wish you would heave it into my
bosom.”
Cable recovered in time, and out of gratitude planned a great
April-fool surprise for his host. He was a systematic man, and did
it in his usual thorough way. He sent a “private and confidential”
suggestion to a hundred and fifty of Mark Twain's friends and
admirers, nearly all distinguished literary men. The suggestion
was that each one of them should send a request for Mark Twain's
autograph, timing it so that it would arrive on the 1st of April.
All seemed to have responded. Mark Twain's writing-table on April
Fool morning was heaped with letters, asking in every ridiculous
fashion for his “valuable autograph.” The one from Aldrich was a
fair sample. He wrote: “I am making a collection of autographs of
our distinguished writers, and having read one of your works,
Gabriel Convoy, I would like to add your name to the list.”
Of course, the joke in this was that Gabriel Convoy was by Bret
Harte, who by this time was thoroughly detested by Mark Twain. The
first one or two of the letters puzzled the victim; then he
comprehended the size and character of the joke and entered into it
thoroughly. One of the letters was from Bloodgood H. Cutter, the
“Poet Lariat” of Innocents Abroad. Cutter, of course, wrote in
“poetry,” that is to say, doggerel. Mark Twain's April Fool was a
most pleasant one.
Rhymed letter by Bloodgood H. Cutter to Mark Twain:
LITTLE NECK, LONG ISLAND.
LONG ISLAND FARMER, TO HIS FRIEND AND PILGRIM BROTHER,
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, ESQ.
Friends, suggest in each one's behalf
To write, and ask your autograph.
To refuse that, I will not do,
After the long voyage had with you.
That was a memorable time You wrote in prose, I wrote in Rhyme To
describe the wonders of each place, And the queer customs of each race.
That is in my memory yet
For while I live I'll not forget.
I often think of that affair
And the many that were with us there.
As your friends think it for the best
I ask your Autograph with the rest,
Hoping you will it to me send
'Twill please and cheer your dear old friend:
Yours truly,
BLOODGOOD H. CUTTER.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Apl 8, '84.
MY DEAR HOWELLS, It took my breath away, and I haven't recovered it yet, entirely—I mean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of Huck Finn.
Now if you mean it, old man—if you are in earnest—proceed, in God's name, and be by me forever blest. I cannot conceive of a rational man deliberately piling such an atrocious job upon himself; but if there is such a man and you be that man, why then pile it on. It will cost me a pang every time I think of it, but this anguish will be eingebusst to me in the joy and comfort I shall get out of the not having to read the verfluchtete proofs myself. But if you have repented of your augenblichlicher Tobsucht and got back to calm cold reason again, I won't hold you to it unless I find I have got you down in writing somewhere. Herr, I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair and reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it.
The proof-reading on the P & P cost me the last rags of my religion.
M.
Howells had written that he would be glad to help out in the
reading of the proofs of Huck Finn, which book Webster by
this time had in hand. Replying to Clemens's eager and
grateful acceptance now, he wrote: “It is all perfectly true
about the generosity, unless I am going to read your proofs
from one of the shabby motives which I always find at the
bottom of my soul if I examine it.” A characteristic
utterance, though we may be permitted to believe that his
shabby motives were fewer and less shabby than those of
mankind in general.
The proofs which Howells was reading pleased him mightily.
Once, during the summer, he wrote: “if I had written half as
good a book as Huck Finn I shouldn't ask anything better
than to read the proofs; even as it is, I don't, so send
them on; they will always find me somewhere.”
This was the summer of the Blaine-Cleveland campaign. Mark
Twain, in company with many other leading men, had
mugwumped, and was supporting Cleveland. From the next
letter we gather something of the aspects of that memorable
campaign, which was one of scandal and vituperation. We
learn, too, that the young sculptor, Karl Gerhardt, having
completed a three years' study in Paris, had returned to
America a qualified artist.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Aug. 21, '84.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,—This presidential campaign is too delicious for anything. Isn't human nature the most consummate sham and lie that was ever invented? Isn't man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all his aspects? Man, “know thyself “—and then thou wilt despise thyself, to a dead moral certainty. Take three quite good specimens—Hawley, Warner, and Charley Clark. Even I do not loathe Blaine more than they do; yet Hawley is howling for Blaine, Warner and Clark are eating their daily crow in the paper for him, and all three will vote for him. O Stultification, where is thy sting, O slave where is thy hickory!
I suppose you heard how a marble monument for which St. Gaudens was pecuniarily responsible, burned down in Hartford the other day, uninsured—for who in the world would ever think of insuring a marble shaft in a cemetery against a fire?—and left St. Gauden out of pocket $15,000.
It was a bad day for artists. Gerhardt finished my bust that day, and the work was pronounced admirable by all the kin and friends; but in putting it in plaster (or rather taking it out) next day it got ruined. It was four or five weeks hard work gone to the dogs. The news flew, and everybody on the farm flocked to the arbor and grouped themselves about the wreck in a profound and moving silence—the farm-help, the colored servants, the German nurse, the children, everybody—a silence interrupted at wide intervals by absent-minded ejaculations wising from unconscious breasts as the whole size of the disaster gradually worked its way home to the realization of one spirit after another.
Some burst out with one thing, some another; the German nurse put up her hands and said, “Oh, Schade! oh, schrecklich!” But Gerhardt said nothing; or almost that. He couldn't word it, I suppose. But he went to work, and by dark had everything thoroughly well under way for a fresh start in the morning; and in three days' time had built a new bust which was a trifle better than the old one—and to-morrow we shall put the finishing touches on it, and it will be about as good a one as nearly anybody can make.
Yrs Ever
MARK.
If you run across anybody who wants a bust, be sure and recommend Gerhardt on my say-so.
But Howells was determinedly for Blaine. “I shall vote for
Blaine,” he replied. “I do not believe he is guilty of the
things they accuse him of, and I know they are not proved
against him. As for Cleveland, his private life may be no
worse than that of most men, but as an enemy of that
contemptible, hypocritical, lop-sided morality which says a
woman shall suffer all the shame of unchastity and man none,
I want to see him destroyed politically by his past. The
men who defend him would take their wives to the White House
if he were president, but if he married his concubine—'made
her an honest woman' they would not go near him. I can't
stand that.”
Certainly this was sound logic, in that day, at least. But
it left Clemens far from satisfied.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
ELMIRA, Sept. 17, '84.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,—Somehow I can't seem to rest quiet under the idea of your voting for Blaine. I believe you said something about the country and the party. Certainly allegiance to these is well; but as certainly a man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor—the party or the country come second to that, and never first. I don't ask you to vote at all—I only urge you to not soil yourself by voting for Blaine.
When you wrote before, you were able to say the charges against him were not proven. But you know now that they are proven, and it seems to me that that bars you and all other honest and honorable men (who are independently situated) from voting for him.
It is not necessary to vote for Cleveland; the only necessary thing to do, as I understand it, is that a man shall keep himself clean, (by withholding his vote for an improper man) even though the party and the country go to destruction in consequence. It is not parties that make or save countries or that build them to greatness—it is clean men, clean ordinary citizens, rank and file, the masses. Clean masses are not made by individuals standing back till the rest become clean.
As I said before, I think a man's first duty is to his own honor; not to his country and not to his party. Don't be offended; I mean no offence. I am not so concerned about the rest of the nation, but—well, good-bye.
Ys Ever
MARK.
There does not appear to be any further discussion of the matter
between Howells and Clemens. Their letters for a time contained no
suggestion of politics.
Perhaps Mark Twain's own political conscience was not entirely clear
in his repudiation of his party; at least we may believe from his
next letter that his Cleveland enthusiasm was qualified by a
willingness to support a Republican who would command his admiration
and honor. The idea of an eleventh-hour nomination was rather
startling, whatever its motive.
To Mr. Pierce, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Oct. 22, '84.
MY DEAR MR. PIERCE,—You know, as well as I do, that the reason the majority of republicans are going to vote for Blaine is because they feel that they cannot help themselves. Do not you believe that if Mr. Edmunds would consent to run for President, on the Independent ticket—even at this late day—he might be elected?
Well, if he wouldn't consent, but should even strenuously protest and say he wouldn't serve if elected, isn't it still wise and fair to nominate him and vote for him? since his protest would relieve him from all responsibility; and he couldn't surely find fault with people for forcing a compliment upon him. And do not you believe that his name thus compulsorily placed at the head of the Independent column would work absolutely certain defeat to Blain and save the country's honor?
Politicians often carry a victory by springing some disgraceful and rascally mine under the feet of the adversary at the eleventh hour; would it not be wholesome to vary this thing for once and spring as formidable a mine of a better sort under the enemy's works?
If Edmunds's name were put up, I would vote for him in the teeth of all the protesting and blaspheming he could do in a month; and there are lots of others who would do likewise.
If this notion is not a foolish and wicked one, won't you just consult with some chief Independents, and see if they won't call a sudden convention and whoop the thing through? To nominate Edmunds the 1st of November, would be soon enough, wouldn't it?
With kindest regards to you and the Aldriches,
Yr Truly
S. L. CLEMENS.
Clemens and Cable set out on their reading-tour in November.
They were a curiously-assorted pair: Cable was of orthodox
religion, exact as to habits, neat, prim, all that Clemens
was not. In the beginning Cable undertook to read the Bible
aloud to Clemens each evening, but this part of the day's
program was presently omitted by request. If they spent
Sunday in a town, Cable was up bright and early visiting the
various churches and Sunday-schools, while Mark Twain
remained at the hotel, in bed, reading or asleep.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg