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:
Aug. 10, '92.
DEAR MR. HALL,—I have dropped that novel I wrote you about, because I saw a more effective way of using the main episode—to wit: by telling it through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer (still 15 years old) and their friend the freed slave Jim around the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, and somewhere after the end of that great voyage he will work in the said episode and then nobody will suspect that a whole book has been written and the globe circumnavigated merely to get that episode in an effective (and at the same time apparently unintentional) way. I have written 12,000 words of this narrative, and find that the humor flows as easily as the adventures and surprises—so I shall go along and make a book of from 50,000 to 100,000 words.
It is a story for boys, of course, and I think will interest any boy between 8 years and 80.
When I was in New York the other day Mrs. Dodge, editor of St. Nicholas, wrote and, offered me $5,000 for (serial right) a story for boys 50,000 words long. I wrote back and declined, for I had other matter in my mind, then.
I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but will also strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.
Now this story doesn't need to be restricted to a Childs magazine—it is proper enough for any magazine, I should think, or for a syndicate. I don't swear it, but I think so.
Proposed title of the story, “New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
[No signature.]
The “novel” mentioned in the foregoing was The Extraordinary Twins,
a story from which Pudd'nhead Wilson would be evolved later. It was
a wildly extravagant farce—just the sort of thing that now and then
Mark Twain plunged into with an enthusiasm that had to work itself
out and die a natural death, or mellow into something worth while.
Tom Sawyer Abroad, as the new Huck story was finally called, was
completed and disposed of to St. Nicholas for serial publication.
The Twichells were in Europe that summer, and came to Bad-Nauheim.
The next letter records a pleasant incident. The Prince of Wales of
that day later became King Edward VII.
To Mr. and Mrs. Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa.:
Private. BAD-NAUHEIM, Aug. 23, '92.
DEAR ORION AND MOLLIE,—(“Private” because no newspaper-man or other gossip must get hold of it)
Livy is getting along pretty well, and the doctor thinks another summer here will cure her.
The Twichell's have been here four days and we have had good times with them. Joe and I ran over to Homburg, the great pleasure resort, Saturday, to dine with some friends, and in the morning I went walking in the promenade and met the British Ambassador to the Court of Berlin, and he introduced me to the Prince of Wales, and I found him a most unusually comfortable and unembarrassing Englishman to talk with—quick to see the obscurest point, and equipped with a laugh which is spontaneous and catching. Am invited by a near friend of his to meet him at dinner day after tomorrow, and there could be a good time, but the brass band will smash the talk and spoil everything.
We are expecting to move to Florence ten or twelve days hence, but if this hot weather continues we shall wait for cooler. I take Clara to Berlin for the winter-music, mainly, with German and French added. Thus far, Jean is our only glib French scholar.
We all send love to you all and to Pamela and Sam's family, and Annie.
SAM
Clemens and family left Bad-Nauheim for Italy by way of Switzerland.
In September Mrs. Clemens's sister, Mrs. Crane, who had been with
them in Europe during the first year, had now returned to America.
Mrs. Clemens had improved at the baths, though she had by no means
recovered her health. We get a general report of conditions from
the letter which Clemens wrote Mrs. Crane from Lucerne, Switzerland,
where the party rested for several days. The “Phelps” mentioned in
this letter was William Walter Phelps, United States Minister to
Germany. The Phelps and Clemens families had been much associated
in Berlin. “Mason” was Frank Mason, Consul General at Frankfort,
and in later years at Paris. “Charlie and Ida” were Charles and
Mrs. Langdon, of Elmira.
To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira, N. Y.:
LUCERNE, Sept. 18, '92.
DEAR AUNT SUE,—Imagine how I felt to find that you had actually gone off without filling my traveling ink stand which you gave me! I found it out yesterday. Livy advised me to write you about it.
I have been driving this pen hard. I wrote 280 pages on a yarn called “Tom Sawyer Abroad,” then took up the “Twins” again, destroyed the last half of the manuscript and re-wrote it in another form, and am going to continue it and finish it in Florence. “Tom Sawyer” seems rather pale to the family after the extravagances of the Twins, but they came to like it after they got used to it.
We remained in Nauheim a little too long. If we had left there four or five days earlier we should have made Florence in 3 days; but by the time we got started Livy had got smitten with what we feared might be erysipelas—greatly swollen neck and face, and unceasing headaches. We lay idle in Frankfort 4 days, doctoring. We started Thursday and made Bale. Hard trip, because it was one of those trains that gets tired every seven minutes and stops to rest three quarters of an hour. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get here, instead of the regulation 2.20. We reached here Friday evening and will leave tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. The rest has made the headaches better. We shall pull through to Milan tomorrow if possible. Next day we shall start at 10 a. m., and try to make Bologna, 5 hours. Next day (Thursday) Florence, D. V. Next year we will walk, for these excursions have got to be made over again. I've got seven trunks, and I undertook to be courier because I meant to express them to Florence direct, but we were a couple of days too late. All continental roads had issued a peremptory order that no baggage should travel a mile except in the company of the owner. (All over Europe people are howling; they are separated from their baggage and can't get it forwarded to them) I have to re-ship my trunks every day. It is very amusing—uncommonly so. There seemed grave doubts about our being able to get these trunks over the Italian frontier, but I've got a very handsome note from the Frankfort Italian Consul General addressed to all Italian Customs Officers, and we shall get through if anybody does.
The Phelpses came to Frankfort and we had some great times—dinner at his hotel, the Masons, supper at our inn—Livy not in it. She was merely allowed a glimpse, no more. Of course, Phelps said she was merely pretending to be ill; was never looking so well and fine.
The children are all right. They paddle around a little, and drive-so do we all. Lucerne seems to be pretty full of tourists. The Fleulen boat went out crowded yesterday morning.
The Paris Herald has created a public interest by inoculating one of its correspondents with cholera. A man said yesterday he wished to God they would inoculate all of them. Yes, the interest is quite general and strong, and much hope is felt.
Livy says, I have said enough bad things, and better send all our loves to you and Charley and Ida and all the children and shut up. Which I do—and shut up.
S. L. C.
They reached Florence on the 26th, and four days later we find
Clemens writing again to Mrs. Crane, detailing everything at length.
Little comment on this letter is required; it fully explains itself.
Perhaps a word of description from one of his memoranda will not be
out of place. Of the villa he wrote: “It is a plain, square
building, like a box, and is painted light green and has green
window-shutters. It stands in a commanding position on the
artificial terrace of liberal dimensions, which is walled around
with masonry. From the walls the vineyards and olive groves of the
estate slant away toward the valley.... Roses overflow the
retaining walls and the battered and mossy stone urn on the
gate-post, in pink and yellow cataracts, exactly as they do on the
drop-curtains in the theaters. The house is a very fortress for
strength.”
The Mrs. Ross in this letter was Janet Ross, daughter of Lady Duff
Gordon, remembered to-day for her Egyptian letters. The Ross castle
was but a little distance away.
To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira:
VILLA VIVIANI, SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE.
Sept. 30, 1892
DEAR SUE,—We have been in the house several days, and certainly it is a beautiful place,—particularly at this moment, when the skies are a deep leaden color, the domes of Florence dim in the drizzling rain, and occasional perpendicular coils of lightning quivering intensely in the black sky about Galileo's Tower. It is a charming panorama, and the most conspicuous towers and domes down in the city look to-day just as they looked when Boccaccio and Dante used to contemplate them from this hillock five and six hundred years ago.
The Mademoiselle is a great help to Livy in the housekeeping, and is a cheery and cheerful presence in the house. The butler is equipped with a little French, and it is this fact that enables the house to go—but it won't go well until the family get some sort of facility with the Italian tongue, for the cook, the woman-of-all-work and the coachman understand only that. It is a stubborn and devilish language to learn, but Jean and the others will master it. Livy's German Nauheim girl is the worst off of anybody, as there is no market for her tongue at all among the help.
With the furniture in and the curtains up the house is very pretty, and not unhomelike. At mid-night last night we heard screams up stairs—Susy had set the lofty window curtains afire with a candle. This sounds kind of frightful, whereas when you come to think of it, a burning curtain or pile of furniture hasn't any element of danger about it in this fortress. There isn't any conceivable way to burn this house down, or enable a conflagration on one floor to climb to the next.
Mrs. Ross laid in our wood, wine and servants for us, and they are excellent. She had the house scoured from Cellar to rook the curtains washed and put up, all beds pulled to pieces, beaten, washed and put together again, and beguiled the Marchese into putting a big porcelain stove in the vast central hall. She is a wonderful woman, and we don't quite see how or when we should have gotten under way without her.
Observe our address above—the post delivers letters daily at the house.
Even with the work and fuss of settling the house Livy has improved—and the best is yet to come. There is going to be absolute seclusion here—a hermit life, in fact. We (the rest of us) shall run over to the Ross's frequently, and they will come here now and then and see Livy—that is all. Mr. Fiske is away—nobody knows where—and the work on his house has been stopped and his servants discharged. Therefore we shall merely go Rossing—as far as society is concerned—shan't circulate in Florence until Livy shall be well enough to take a share in it.
This present house is modern. It is not much more than two centuries old; but parts of it, and also its foundations are of high antiquity. The fine beautiful family portraits—the great carved ones in the large ovals over the doors of the big hall—carry one well back into the past. One of them is dated 1305—he could have known Dante, you see. Another is dated 1343—he could have known Boccaccio and spent his afternoons in Fiesole listening to the Decameron tales. Another is dated 1463—he could have met Columbus.....
Evening. The storm thundered away until night, and the rain came down in floods. For awhile there was a partial break, which furnished about such a sunset as will be exhibited when the Last Day comes and the universe tumbles together in wreck and ruin. I have never seen anything more spectacular and impressive.
One person is satisfied with the villa, anyway. Jean prefers it to all Europe, save Venice. Jean is eager to get at the Italian tongue again, now, and I see that she has forgotten little or nothing of what she learned of it in Rome and Venice last spring.
I am the head French duffer of the family. Most of the talk goes over my head at the table. I catch only words, not phrases. When Italian comes to be substituted I shall be even worse off than I am now, I suppose.
This reminds me that this evening the German girl said to Livy, “Man hat mir gesagt loss Sie una candella verlaught habe”—unconsciously dropping in a couple of Italian words, you see. So she is going to join the polyglots, too, it appears. They say it is good entertainment to hear her and the butler talk together in their respective tongues, piecing out and patching up with the universal sign-language as they go along. Five languages in use in the house (including the sign-language-hardest-worked of them all) and yet with all this opulence of resource we do seem to have an uncommonly tough time making ourselves understood.
What we lack is a cat. If we only had Germania! That was the most satisfactory all-round cat I have seen yet. Totally ungermanic in the raciness of his character and in the sparkle of his mind and the spontaneity of his movements. We shall not look upon his like again....
S. L. C.
Clemens got well settled down to work presently. He found the
situation, the climate, the background, entirely suited to literary
production, and in a little while he had accomplished more than at
any other time since his arrival in Europe. From letters to Mrs.
Crane and to Mr. Hall we learn something of his employments and his
satisfaction.
To Mrs. Crane, in Elmira:
VILLA VIVIANI
SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE. Oct. 22, '92.
DEAR SUE,—We are getting wonted. The open fires have driven away the cold and the doubt, and now a cheery spirit pervades the place. Livy and the Kings and Mademoiselle having been taking their tea a number of times, lately, on the open terrace with the city and the hills and the sunset for company. I stop work, a few minutes, as a rule, when the sun gets down to the hilltops west of Florence, and join the tea-group to wonder and exclaim. There is always some new miracle in the view, a new and exquisite variation in the show, a variation which occurs every 15 minutes between dawn and night. Once early in the morning, a multitude of white villas not before perceived, revealed themselves on the far hills; then we recognized that all those great hills are snowed thick with them, clear to the summit.
The variety of lovely effects, the infinitude of change, is something not to be believed by any who has not seen it. No view that I am acquainted with in the world is at all comparable to this for delicacy, charm, exquisiteness, dainty coloring, and bewildering rapidity of change. It keeps a person drunk with pleasure all the time. Sometimes Florence ceases to be substantial, and becomes just a faint soft dream, with domes and towers of air, and one is persuaded that he might blow it away with a puff of his breath.
Livy is progressing admirably. This is just the place for her.
[Remainder missing.]
To Fred J. Hall, in New York:
Dec. 12, '92.
DEAR MR. HALL,—November check received.
I have lent the Californian's Story to Arthur Stedman for his Author Club Book, so your suggestion that my new spring-book bear that name arrives too late, as he probably would not want us to use that story in a book of ours until the Author book had had its run. That is for him to decide—and I don't want him hampered at all in his decision. I, for my part, prefer the “$1,000,000 Banknote and Other Stories” by Mark Twain as a title, but above my judgment I prefer yours. I mean this—it is not taffy.
I told Arthur to leave out the former squib or paragraph and use only the Californian's Story. Tell him this is because I am going to use that in the book I am now writing.
I finished “Those Extraordinary Twins” night before last makes 60 or 80,000 words—haven't counted.
The last third of it suits me to a dot. I begin, to-day, to entirely recast and re-write the first two-thirds—new plan, with two minor characters, made very prominent, one major character cropped out, and the Twins subordinated to a minor but not insignificant place.
The minor character will now become the chiefest, and I will name the story after him—“Puddn'head Wilson.”
Merry Xmas to you, and great prosperity and felicity!
S. L. CLEMENS.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg