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Complete Letters of Mark Twain
XIV. Letters 1874. Mississippi Chapters. Visits To Boston. A Joke On Aldrich
“Couldn’t you send me some such story as that colored one for our January number – that is, within a month?” wrote Howells, at the end of September, and during the week following Mark Twain struggled hard to comply, but without result. When the month was nearly up he wrote:
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To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, Oct. 23, 1874.
My dear Howells, – I have delayed thus long, hoping I might do something for the January number and Mrs. Clemens has diligently persecuted me day by day with urgings to go to work and do that something, but it’s no use – I find I can’t. We are in such a state of weary and endless confusion that my head won’t go. So I give it up…..
Yrs ever,
Mark.
But two hours later, when he had returned from one of the long walks which he and Twichell so frequently took together, he told a different story.
Later, P.M. Home, 24th ’74.
My dear Howells, – I take back the remarkthat I can’t write for the Jan. number. For Twichell and I have had a long walk in the woods and I got to telling him about old Mississippi days of steam-boating glory and grandeur as I saw them (during 5 years) from the pilothouse. He said “What a virgin subject to hurl into a magazine!” I hadn’t thought of that before. Would you like a series of papers to run through 3 months or 6 or 9?—or about 4 months, say?
Yrs ever,
Mark.
Howells himself had come from a family of pilots, and rejoiced in the idea. A few days later Mark Twain forwarded the first instalment of the new series – those wonderful chapters that begin, now, with chapter four in the Mississippi book. Apparently he was not without doubt concerning the manuscript, and accompanied it with a brief line.
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To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Dear Howells, – Cut it, scarify it, reject it handle it with entire freedom.
Yrs ever,
Mark.
But Howells had no doubts as to the quality of the new find. He declared that the “piece” about the Mississippi was capital, that it almost made the water in their ice-pitcher turn muddy as he read it. “The sketch of the low-lived little town was so good that I could have wished that there was more of it. I want the sketches, if you can make them, every month.”
The “low-lived little town” was Hannibal, and the reader can turn to the vivid description of it in the chapter already mentioned. In the same letter Howells refers to a “letter from Limerick,” which he declares he shall keep until he has shown it around – especially to Aldrich and Osgood.
The “letter from Limerick” has to do with a special episode. Mention has just been made of Mark Twain’s walk with Twichell. Frequently their walks were extended tramps, and once in a daring moment one or the other of them proposed to walk to Boston. The time was November, and the bracing air made the proposition seem attractive. They were off one morning early, Twichell carrying a little bag, and Clemens a basket of luncheon. A few days before, Clemens had written Redpath that the Rev. J. H. Twichell and he expected to start at eight o’clock Thursday morning “to walk to Boston in twenty-four hours – or more. We shall telegraph Young’s Hotel for rooms Saturday night, in order to allow for a low average of pedestrianism.”
They did not get quite to Boston. In fact, they got only a little farther than the twenty-eight miles they made the first day. Clemens could hardly walk next morning, but they managed to get to North Ashford, where they took a carriage for the nearest railway station. There they telegraphed to Redpath and Howells that they would be in Boston that evening. Howells, of course, had a good supper and good company awaiting them at his home, and the pedestrians spent two happy days visiting and recounting their adventures.
It was one morning, at his hotel, that Mark Twain wrote the Limerick letter. It was addressed to Mrs. Clemens, but was really intended for Howells and Twichell and the others whom it mentions. It was an amusing fancy, rather than a letter, but it deserves place here.
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To Mrs. Clemens – intended for Howells, Aldrich, etc.
Boston, Nov. 16, 1935. [1874]
Dear Livy, You observe I still call this beloved old place by the name it had when I was young. Limerick! It is enough to make a body sick.
The gentlemen-in-waiting stare to see me sit here telegraphing this letter to you, and no doubt they are smiling in their sleeves. But let them! The slow old fashions are good enough for me, thank God, and I will none other. When I see one of these modern fools sit absorbed, holding the end of a telegraph wire in his hand, and reflect that a thousand miles away there is another fool hitched to the other end of it, it makes me frantic with rage; and then am I more implacably fixed and resolved than ever, to continue taking twenty minutes to telegraph you what I communicate in ten sends by the new way if I would so debase myself. And when I see a whole silent, solemn drawing-room full of idiots sitting with their hands on each other’s foreheads “communing,” I tug the white hairs from my head and curse till my asthma brings me the blessed relief of suffocation. In our old day such a gathering talked pure drivel and “rot,” mostly, but better that, a thousand times, than these dreary conversational funerals that oppress our spirits in this mad generation.
It is sixty years since I was here before. I walked hither, then, with my precious old friend. It seems incredible, now, that we did it in two days, but such is my recollection. I no longer mention that we walked back in a single day, it makes me so furious to see doubt in the face of the hearer. Men were men in those old times. Think of one of the puerile organisms in this effeminate age attempting such a feat.
My air-ship was delayed by a collision with a fellow from China loaded with the usual cargo of jabbering, copper-colored missionaries, and so I was nearly an hour on my journey. But by the goodness of God thirteen of the missionaries were crippled and several killed, so I was content to lose the time. I love to lose time, anyway, because it brings soothing reminiscences of the creeping railroad days of old, now lost to us forever.
Our game was neatly played, and successfully. – None expected us, of course. You should have seen the guards at the ducal palace stare when I said, “Announce his grace the Archbishop of Dublin and the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Hartford.” Arrived within, we were all eyes to see the Duke of Cambridge and his Duchess, wondering if we might remember their faces, and they ours. In a moment, they came tottering in; he, bent and withered and bald; she blooming with wholesome old age. He peered through his glasses a moment, then screeched in a reedy voice: “Come to my arms! Away with titles – I’ll know ye by no names but Twain and Twichell! Then fell he on our necks and jammed his trumpet in his ear, the which we filled with shoutings to this effect: God bless you, old Howells what is left of you!”
We talked late that night – none of your silent idiot “communings” for us – of the olden time. We rolled a stream of ancient anecdotes over our tongues and drank till the lord Archbishop grew so mellow in the mellow past that Dublin ceased to be Dublin to him and resumed its sweeter forgotten name of New York. In truth he almost got back into his ancient religion, too, good Jesuit, as he has always been since O’Mulligan the First established that faith in the Empire.
And we canvassed everybody. Bailey Aldrich, Marquis of Ponkapog, came in, got nobly drunk, and told us all about how poor Osgood lost his earldom and was hanged for conspiring against the second Emperor – but he didn’t mention how near he himself came to being hanged, too, for engaging in the same enterprise. He was as chaffy as he was sixty years ago, too, and swore the Archbishop and I never walked to Boston – but there was never a day that Ponkapog wouldn’t lie, so be it by the grace of God he got the opportunity.
The Lord High Admiral came in, a hale gentleman close upon seventy and bronzed by the suns and storms of many climes and scarred with the wounds got in many battles, and I told him how I had seen him sit in a high chair and eat fruit and cakes and answer to the name of Johnny. His granddaughter (the eldest) is but lately warned to the youngest of the Grand Dukes, and so who knows but a day may come when the blood of the Howells’s may reign in the land? I must not forget to say, while I think of it, that your new false teeth are done, my dear, and your wig. Keep your head well bundled with a shawl till the latter comes, and so cheat your persecuting neuralgias and rheumatisms. Would you believe it? – the Duchess of Cambridge is deafer than you – deafer than her husband. They call her to breakfast with a salvo of artillery; and usually when it thunders she looks up expectantly and says “come in…..”
The monument to the author of “Gloverson and His Silent partners” is finished. It is the stateliest and the costliest ever erected to the memory of any man. This noble classic has now been translated into all the languages of the earth and is adored by all nations and known to all creatures. Yet I have conversed as familiarly with the author of it as I do with my own great-grandchildren.
I wish you could see old Cambridge and Ponkapog. I love them as dearly as ever, but privately, my dear, they are not much improvement on idiots. It is melancholy to hear them jabber over the same pointless anecdotes three and four times of an evening, forgetting that they had jabbered them over three or four times the evening before. Ponkapog still writes poetry, but the old-time fire has mostly gone out of it. Perhaps his best effort of late years is this:
“O soul, soul, soul of mine:
Soul, soul, soul of thine!
Thy soul, my soul, two souls entwine,
And sing thy lauds in crystal wine!”
This he goes about repeating to everybody, daily and nightly, insomuch that he is become a sore affliction to all that know him.
But I must desist. There are drafts here, everywhere and my gout is something frightful. My left foot hath resemblance to a snuff-bladder.
God be with you.
Hartford.
These to Lady Hartford, in the earldom of Hartford, in the upper portion of the city of Dublin.
One may imagine the joy of Howells and the others in this ludicrous extravaganza, which could have been written by no one but Mark Twain. It will hardly take rank as prophecy, though certainly true forecast in it is not wholly lacking.
Clemens was now pretty well satisfied with his piloting story, but he began to have doubts as to its title, “Old Times on the Mississippi.” It seemed to commit him to too large an undertaking.
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To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Dec. 3, 1874.
My dear Howells, – Let us change the heading to “Piloting on the Miss in the Old Times”—or to “Steamboating on the M. in Old Times”—or to “Personal Old Times on the Miss.”—We could change it for Feb. if now too late for Jan. – I suggest it because the present heading is too pretentious, too broad and general. It seems to command me to deliver a Second Book of Revelation to the world, and cover all the Old Times the Mississippi (dang that word, it is worse than “type” or “Egypt “) ever saw – whereas here I have finished Article No. III and am about to start on No. 4. and yet I have spoken of nothing but of Piloting as a science so far; and I doubt if I ever get beyond that portion of my subject. And I don’t care to. Any muggins can write about Old Times on the Miss. of 500 different kinds, but I am the only man alive that can scribble about the piloting of that day – and no man ever has tried to scribble about it yet. Its newness pleases me all the time – and it is about the only new subject I know of. If I were to write fifty articles they would all be about pilots and piloting – therefore let’s get the word Piloting into the heading. There’s a sort of freshness about that, too.
Ys ever,
Mark.
But Howells thought the title satisfactory, and indeed it was the best that could have been selected for the series. He wrote every few days of his delight in the papers, and cautioned the author not to make an attempt to please any “supposed Atlantic audience,” adding, “Yarn it off into my sympathetic ear.” Clemens replied:
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To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
H’t’f’d. Dec. 8, 1874.
My dear Howells, – It isn’t the Atlantic audience that distresses me; for it is the only audience that I sit down before in perfect serenity (for the simple reason that it doesn’t require a “humorist” to paint himself striped and stand on his head every fifteen minutes.) The trouble was, that I was only bent on “working up an atmosphere” and that is to me a most fidgety and irksome thing, sometimes. I avoid it, usually, but in this case it was absolutely necessary, else every reader would be applying the atmosphere of his own or sea experiences, and that shirt wouldn’t fit, you know.
I could have sent this Article II a week ago, or more, but I couldn’t bring myself to the drudgery of revising and correcting it. I have been at that tedious work 3 hours, now, and by George but I am glad it is over.
Say – I am as prompt as a clock, if I only know the day a thing is wanted – otherwise I am a natural procrastinaturalist. Tell me what day and date you want Nos. 3 and 4, and I will tackle and revise them and they’ll be there to the minute.
I could wind up with No. 4., but there are some things more which I am powerfully moved to write. Which is natural enough, since I am a person who would quit authorizing in a minute to go to piloting, if the madam would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat, any time.
My wife was afraid to write you – so I said with simplicity, “I will give you the language – and ideas.” Through the infinite grace of God there has not been such another insurrection in the family before as followed this. However, the letter was written, and promptly, too – whereas, heretofore she has remained afraid to do such things.
With kind regards to Mrs. Howells,
Yrs ever,
Mark.
The “Old Times” papers appeared each month in the Atlantic until July, 1875, and take rank to-day with Mark Twain’s best work. When the first number appeared, John Hay wrote: “It is perfect; no more nor less. I don’t see how you do it.” Which was reported to Howells, who said: “What business has Hay, I should like to know, praising a favorite of mine? It’s interfering.”
These were the days when the typewriter was new. Clemens and Twichell, during their stay in Boston, had seen the marvel in operation, and Clemens had been unable to resist owning one. It was far from being the perfect machine of to-day; the letters were all capitals, and one was never quite certain, even of those. Mark Twain, however, began with enthusiasm and practised faithfully. On the day of its arrival he wrote two letters that have survived, the first to his brother, the other to Howells.
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Typewritten letter to W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, Dec. 9, 1874.
My dear Howells, – I want to add a short paragraph to article No. 1, when the proof comes. Merely a line or two, however.
I don’t know whether I am going to make this typewriting machine go or nto, that last word was intended for n-not; but I guess I shall make some sort of a succss of it before I run it very long. I am so thick-fingered that I miss the keys.
You needn’t a swer this; I am only practicing to get three; another slip-up there; only practicing to get the hang of the thing. I notice I miss fire & get in a good many unnecessary letters and punctuation Mark.. I am simply using you for a target to bang at. Blame my cats but this thing requires genius in order to work it just right.
Yours ever,
Mark.
Knowing Mark Twain, Howells wrote: “When you get tired of the machine send it to me.” Clemens naturally did get tired of the machine; it was ruining his morals, he said. He presently offered it to Howells, who by this time hesitated, but eventually yielded and accepted it. If he was blasted by its influence the fact has not been recorded.
One of the famous Atlantic dinners came along in December. “Don’t you dare to refuse that invitation,” wrote Howells, “to meet Emerson, Aldrich, and all those boys at the Parker House, at six o’clock, Tuesday, December 15th. Come!”
Clemens had no desire to refuse; he sent word that he would come, and followed it with a characteristic line.
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To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, Sunday.
My dear Howells, – I want you to ask Mrs. Howells to let you stay all night at the Parker House and tell lies and have an improving time, and take breakfast with me in the morning. I will have a good room for you, and a fire. Can’t you tell her it always makes you sick to go home late at night, or something like that? That sort of thing rouses Mrs. Clemens’s sympathies, easily; the only trouble is to keep them up. Twichell and I talked till 2 or 3 in the morning, the night we supped at your house and it restored his health, on account of his being drooping for some time and made him much more robuster than what he was before. Will Mrs. Howells let you?
Yrs ever,
S. L. C.
Aldrich had issued that year a volume of poems, and he presented Clemens with a copy of it during this Boston visit. The letter of appreciation which follows contains also reference to an amusing incident; but we shall come to that presently.
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To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Mass.
Farmington Avenue, Hartford.
Dec. 18, 1874.
My dear Aldrich, – I read the “Cloth of Gold” through, coming down in the cars, and it is just lightning poetry – a thing which it gravels me to say because my own efforts in that line have remained so persistently unrecognized, in consequence of the envy and jealousy of this generation. “Baby Bell” always seemed perfection, before, but now that I have children it has got even beyond that. About the hour that I was reading it in the cars, Twichell was reading it at home and forthwith fell upon me with a burst of enthusiasm about it when I saw him. This was pleasant, because he has long been a lover of it.
“Thos. Bailey Aldrich responded” etc., “in one of the brightest speeches of the evening.”
That is what the Tribune correspondent says. And that is what everybody that heard it said. Therefore, you keep still. Don’t ever be so unwise as to go on trying to unconvince those people.
I’ve been skating around the place all day with some girls, with Mrs. Clemens in the window to do the applause. There would be a power of fun in skating if you could do it with somebody else’s muscles. – There are about twenty boys booming by the house, now, and it is mighty good to look at.
I’m keeping you in mind, you see, in the matter of photographs. I have a couple to enclose in this letter and I want you to say you got them, and then I shall know I have been a good truthful child.
I am going to send more as I ferret them out, about the place. – And I won’t forget that you are a “subscriber.”
The wife and I unite in warm regards to you and Mrs. Aldrich.
Yrs ever,
S. L. Clemens.
A letter bearing the same date as the above went back to Howells, we find, in reference to still another incident, which perhaps should come first.
Mark Twain up to this time had worn the black “string” necktie of the West – a decoration which disturbed Mrs. Clemens, and invited remarkfrom his friends. He had persisted in it, however, up to the date of the Atlantic dinner, when Howells and Aldrich decided that something must be done about it.
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To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
Hartford, Dec. 18, 1874.
My dear Howells, – I left No. 3, (Miss. chapter) in my eldest’s reach, and it may have gone to the postman and it likewise may have gone into the fire. I confess to a dread that the latter is the case and that that stack of Ms will have to be written over again. If so, O for the return of the lamented Herod!
You and Aldrich have made one woman deeply and sincerely grateful – Mrs. Clemens. For months – I may even say years – she had shown unaccountable animosity toward my neck-tie, even getting up in the night to take it with the tongs and blackguard it – sometimes also going so far as to threaten it.
When I said you and Aldrich had given me two new neck-ties, and that they were in a paper in my overcoat pocket, she was in a fever of happiness until she found I was going to frame them; then all the venom in her nature gathered itself together, – insomuch that I, being near to a door, went without, perceiving danger.
Now I wear one of the new neck-ties, nothing being sacred in Mrs. Clemens’s eyes that can be perverted to a gaud that shall make the person of her husband more alluring than it was aforetime.
Jo Twichell was the delightedest old boy I ever saw, when he read the words you had written in that book. He and I went to the Concert of the Yale students last night and had a good time.
Mrs. Clemens dreads our going to New Orleans, but I tell her she’ll have to give her consent this time.
With kindest regards unto ye both.
Yrs ever,
S. L. Clemens.
The reference to New Orleans at the end of this letter grew naturally out of the enthusiasm aroused by the Mississippi papers. The more Clemens wrote about the river the more he wished to revisit it and take Howells with him. Howells was willing enough to go and they eventually arranged to take their wives on the excursion. This seemed all very well and possible, so long as the time was set for some date in the future still unfixed. But Howells was a busy editor, and it was much more easy for him to promise good-naturedly than to agree on a definite time of departure. He explained at length why he could not make the journey, and added: “Forgive me having led you on to fix a time; I never thought it would come to that; I supposed you would die, or something. I am really more sorry and ashamed than I can make it appear.” So the beautiful plan was put aside, though it was not entirely abandoned for a long time.
We now come to the incident mentioned in Mark Twain’s letter to Aldrich, of December the 18th. It had its beginning at the Atlantic dinner, where Aldrich had abused Clemens for never sending him any photographs of himself. It was suggested by one or the other that his name be put down as a “regular subscriber” for all Mark Twain photographs as they “came out.” Clemens returned home and hunted up fifty-two different specimens, put each into an envelope, and began mailing them to him, one each morning. When a few of them had arrived Aldrich wrote, protesting.
“The police,” he said, “have a way of swooping down on that kind of publication. The other day they gobbled up an entire edition of ‘The Life in New York.’”
Whereupon Clemens bundled up the remaining collection – forty-five envelopes of photographs and prints-and mailed them together.
Aldrich wrote, now, violently declaring the perpetrator of the outrage to be known to the police; that a sprawling yellow figure against a green background had been recognized as an admirable likeness of Mark Twain, alias the jumping Frog, a well-known Californian desperado, formerly the chief of Henry Plummer’s band of road agents in Montana. The letter was signed, “T. Bayleigh, Chief of Police.” On the back of the envelope “T. Bayleigh” had also written that it was “no use for the person to send any more letters, as the post-office at that point was to be blown up. Forty-eight hogs-head of nitroglycerine had been syrupticiously introduced into the cellar of the building, and more was expected. R.W.E. H.W.L. O.W.H., and other conspirators in masks have been seen flitting about the town for some days past. The greatest excitement combined with the most intense quietness reigns at Ponkapog.”
