“Your Highness,” he said, “I have had other compliments paid to me,but none equal to this one. I have never before had a salute firedin my honor.”
Returning to Hartford, he sent copies of his books to Lord Lorne, and to the Princess a special copy of that absurd manual, The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English, for which he had written an introduction.—[A serious work, in Portugal, though issued by Osgood ('83) as a joke. Clemens in the introduction says: “Its delicious, unconscious ridiculousness and its enchanting naivety are as supreme and unapproachable in their way as Shakespeare's sublimities.” An extract, the closing paragraph from the book's preface, will illustrate his meaning:
“We expect then, who the little book (for the care that we wrote him, and for her typographical correction), that maybe worth the acceptation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.”]
Arriving at the farm in June, Clemens had a fresh crop of ideas for stories of many lengths and varieties. His note-book of that time is full of motifs and plots, most of them of that improbable and extravagant kind which tended to defeat any literary purpose, whether humorous or otherwise. It seems worth while setting down one or more of these here, for they are characteristic of the myriad conceptions that came and went, and beyond these written memoranda left no trace behind. Here is a fair example of many:
Two men starving on a raft. The pauper has a Boston cracker,resolves to keep it till the multimillionaire is beginning tostarve, then make him pay $50,000 for it. Millionaire agrees.Pauper's cupidity rises, resolves to wait and get more; twenty-fourhours later asks him a million for the cracker. Millionaire agrees.Pauper has a wild dream of becoming enormously rich off his cracker;backs down; lies all night building castles in the air; next dayraises his price higher and higher, till millionaire has offered$100,000,000, every cent he has in the world. Pauper accepts.Millionaire: “Now give it to me.”Pauper: “No; it isn't a trade until you sign documental history ofthe transaction and make an oath to pay.”While pauper is finishing the document millionaire sees a ship.When pauper says, “Sign and take the cracker,” millionaire smiles asmile, declines, and points to the ship.
Yet this is hardly more extravagant than another idea that is mentioned repeatedly among the notes—that of an otherwise penniless man wandering about London with a single million-pound bank-note in his possession, a motif which developed into a very good story indeed.
IDEA FOR “STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN”In modern times the halls of heaven are warmed by registersconnected with hell; and this is greatly applauded by JonathanEdwards, Calvin, Baxter and Company, because it adds a new pang tothe sinner's sufferings to know that the very fire which tortureshim is the means of making the righteous comfortable.
Then there was to be another story, in which the various characters were to have a weird, pestilential nomenclature; such as “Lockjaw Harris,” “Influenza Smith,” “Sinapism Davis,” and a dozen or two more, a perfect outbreak of disorders.
Another—probably the inspiration of some very hot afternoon—was to present life in the interior of an iceberg, where a colony would live for a generation or two, drifting about in a vast circular current year after year, subsisting on polar bears and other Arctic game.
An idea which he followed out and completed was the 1002d Arabian Night, in which Scheherazade continues her stories, until she finally talks the Sultan to death. That was a humorous idea, certainly; but when Howells came home and read it in the usual way he declared that, while the opening was killingly funny, when he got into the story itself it seemed to him that he was “made a fellow-sufferer with the Sultan from Scheherazade's prolixity.”
“On the whole,” he said, “it is not your best, nor your second best; but all the way it skirts a certain kind of fun which you can't afford to indulge in.”
And that was the truth. So the tale, neatly typewritten, retired to seclusion, and there remains to this day.
Clemens had one inspiration that summer which was not directly literary, but historical, due to his familiarity with English dates. He wrote Twichell:
Day before yesterday, feeling not in condition for writing, I leftthe study, but I couldn't hold in—had to do something; so I spenteight hours in the sun with a yardstick, measuring off the reigns ofthe English kings on the roads in these grounds, from William theConqueror to 1883, calculating to invent an open-air game whichshall fill the children's heads with dates without study. I giveeach king's reign one foot of space to the year and drive one stakein the ground to mark the beginning of each reign, and I make thechildren call the stake by the king's name. You can stand in thedoor and take a bird's-eye view of English monarchy, from theConqueror to Edward IV.; then you can turn and follow the road upthe hill to the study and beyond with an opera-glass, and bird's-eyeview the rest of it to 1883.You can mark the sharp difference in the length of reigns by thevarying distances of the stakes apart. You can see Richard II., twofeet; Oliver Cromwell, two feet; James II., three feet, and so on—and then big skips; pegs standing forty-five, forty-six, fifty,fifty-six, and sixty feet apart (Elizabeth, Victoria, Edward III.,Henry III., and George III.). By the way, third's a lucky numberfor length of days, isn't it? Yes, sir; by my scheme you get arealizing notion of the time occupied by reigns.The reason it took me eight hours was because, with little Jean'sinterrupting assistance, I had to measure from the Conquest to theend of Henry VI. three times over, and besides I had to whittle outall those pegs.I did a full day's work and a third over, yesterday, but was full ofmy game after I went to bed trying to fit it for indoors. So Ididn't get to sleep till pretty late; but when I did go off I hadcontrived a new way to play my history game with cards and a board.
We may be sure the idea of the game would possess him, once it got a fair start like that. He decided to save the human race that year with a history game. When he had got the children fairly going and interested in playing it, he adapted it to a cribbage-board, and spent his days and nights working it out and perfecting it to a degree where the world at large might learn all the facts of all the histories, not only without effort, but with an actual hunger for chronology. He would have a game not only of the English kings, but of the kings of every other nation; likewise of great statesmen, vice-chancellors, churchmen, of celebrities in every line. He would prepare a book to accompany these games. Each game would contain one thousand facts, while the book would contain eight thousand; it would be a veritable encyclopedia. He would organize clubs throughout the United States for playing the game; prizes were to be given. Experts would take it up. He foresaw a department in every newspaper devoted to the game and its problems, instead of to chess and whist and other useless diversions. He wrote to Orion, and set him to work gathering facts and dates by the bushel. He wrote to Webster, sent him a plan, and ordered him to apply for the patent without delay. Patents must also be applied for abroad. With all nations playing this great game, very likely it would produce millions in royalties; and so, in the true Sellers fashion, the iridescent bubble was blown larger and larger, until finally it blew up. The game on paper had become so large, so elaborate, so intricate, that no one could play it. Yet the first idea was a good one: the king stakes driven along the driveway and up the hillside of Quarry Farm. The children enjoyed it, and played it through many sweet summer afternoons. Once, in the days when he had grown old, he wrote, remembering:
Among the principal merits of the games which we played by help ofthe pegs were these: that they had to be played in the open air, andthat they compelled brisk exercise. The peg of William theConqueror stood in front of the house; one could stand near theConqueror and have all English history skeletonized and landmarkedand mile-posted under his eye.... The eye has a good memory.Many years have gone by and the pegs have disappeared, but I stillsee them and each in its place; and no king's name falls upon my earwithout my seeing his pegs at once, and noticing just how many feetof space he takes up along the road.
It turned out an important literary year after all. In the Mississippi book he had used a chapter from the story he had been working at from time to time for a number of years, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Reading over the manuscript now he found his interest in it sharp and fresh, his inspiration renewed. The trip down the river had revived it. The interest in the game became quiescent, and he set to work to finish the story at a dead heat.
To Howells, August 22 (1883), he wrote:
I have written eight or nine hundred manuscript pages in such abrief space of time that I mustn't name the number of days; Ishouldn't believe it myself, and of course couldn't expect you to.I used to restrict myself to four and five hours a day and five daysin the week, but this time I have wrought from breakfast till 5.15P.M. six days in the week, and once or twice I smouched a Sundaywhen the boss wasn't looking. Nothing is half so good as literaturehooked on Sunday, on the sly.
He refers to the game, though rather indifferently.
When I wrote you I thought I had it; whereas I was merely enteringupon the initiatory difficulties of it. I might have known itwouldn't be an easy job or somebody would have invented a decenthistorical game long ago—a thing which nobody has done.
Notwithstanding the fact that he was working at Huck with enthusiasm, he seems to have been in no hurry to revise it for publication, either as a serial or as a book. But the fact that he persevered until Huck Finn at last found complete utterance was of itself a sufficient matter for congratulation.
Now I think that the play for you to write would be one entitled,“Colonel Mulberry Sellers in Age” (75), with Lafayette Hawkins (at50) still sticking to him and believing in him and calling him “Mylord.” He [Sellers] is a specialist and a scientist in variousways. Your refined people and purity of speech would make the bestpossible background, and when you are done, I could take yourmanuscript and rewrite the Colonel's speeches, and make him properlyextravagant, and I would let the play go to Raymond, and bind him upwith a contract that would give him the bellyache every time he readit. Shall we think this over, or drop it as being nonsense?
Howells, returned and settled in Boston once more, had revived an interest in the play idea. He corresponded with Clemens concerning it and agreed that the American Claimant, Leathers, should furnish the initial impulse of the drama.
They decided to revive Colonel Sellers and make him the heir; Colonel Sellers in old age, more wildly extravagant than ever, with new schemes, new patents, new methods of ameliorating the ills of mankind.
Howells came down to Hartford from Boston full of enthusiasm. He found Clemens with some ideas of the plan jotted down: certain effects and situations which seemed to him amusing, but there was no general scheme of action. Howells, telling of it, says:
I felt authorized to make him observe that his scheme was as nearlynothing as chaos could be. He agreed hilariously with me, and waswilling to let it stand in proof of his entire dramatic inability.
Howells, in turn, proposed a plan which Clemens approved, and they set to work. Howells could imitate Clemens's literary manner, and they had a riotously jubilant fortnight working out their humors. Howells has told about it in his book, and he once related it to the writer of this memoir. He said:
“Clemens took one scene and I another. We had loads and loads of fun about it. We cracked our sides laughing over it as it went along. We thought it mighty good, and I think to this day that it was mighty good. We called the play 'Colonel Sellers.' We revived him. Clemens had a notion of Sellers as a spiritual medium-there was a good deal of excitement about spiritualism then; he also had a notion of Sellers leading a women's temperance crusade. We conceived the idea of Sellers wanting to try, in the presence of the audience, how a man felt who had fallen, through drink. Sellers was to end with a sort of corkscrew performance on the stage. He always wore a marvelous fire extinguisher, one of his inventions, strapped on his back, so in any sudden emergency, he could give proof of its effectiveness.”
In connection with the extinguisher, Howells provided Sellers with a pair of wings, which Sellers declared would enable him to float around in any altitude where the flames might break out. The extinguisher, was not to be charged with water or any sort of liquid, but with Greek fire, on the principle that like cures like; in other words, the building was to be inoculated with Greek fire against the ordinary conflagration. Of course the whole thing was as absurd as possible, and, reading the old manuscript to-day, one is impressed with the roaring humor of some of the scenes, and with the wild extravagance of the farce motive, not wholly warranted by the previous character of Sellers, unless, indeed, he had gone stark mad. It is, in fact, Sellers caricatured. The gentle, tender side of Sellers—the best side—the side which Clemens and Howells themselves cared for most, is not there. Chapter III of Mark Twain's novel, The American Claimant, contains a scene between Colonel Sellers and Washington Hawkins which presents the extravagance of the Colonel's materialization scheme. It is a modified version of one of the scenes in the play, and is as amusing and unoffending as any.
The authors' rollicking joy in their work convinced them that they had produced a masterpiece for which the public in general, and the actors in particular, were waiting. Howells went back to Boston tired out, but elate in the prospect of imminent fortune.
Meantime, while Howells had been in Hartford working at the play with Clemens, Matthew Arnold had arrived in Boston. On inquiring for Howells, at his home, the visitor was told that he had gone to see Mark Twain. Arnold was perhaps the only literary Englishman left who had not accepted Mark Twain at his larger value. He seemed surprised and said:
“Oh, but he doesn't like that sort of thing, does he?”
To which Mrs. Howells replied:
“He likes Mr. Clemens very much, and he thinks him one of the greatest men he ever knew.”
Arnold proceeded to Hartford to lecture, and one night Howells and Clemens went to meet him at a reception. Says Howells:
While his hand laxly held mine in greeting I saw his eyes fixedintensely on the other side of the room. “Who—who in the world isthat?” I looked and said, “Oh, that is Mark Twain.” I do notremember just how their instant encounter was contrived by Arnold'swish; but I have the impression that they were not parted for longduring the evening, and the next night Arnold, as if still under theglamour of that potent presence, was at Clemens's house.
He came there to dine with the Twichells and the Rev. Dr. Edwin P. Parker. Dr. Parker and Arnold left together, and, walking quietly homeward, discussed the remarkable creature whose presence they had just left. Clemens had been at his best that night—at his humorous best. He had kept a perpetual gale of laughter going, with a string of comment and anecdote of a kind which Twichell once declared the world had never before seen and would never see again. Arnold seemed dazed by it, unable to come out from under its influence. He repeated some of the things Mark Twain had said; thoughtfully, as if trying to analyze their magic. Then he asked solemnly:
“And is he never serious?”
And Dr. Parker as solemnly answered:
“Mr. Arnold, he is the most serious man in the world.” Dr. Parker, recalling this incident, remembered also that Protap Chunder Mazoomdar, a Hindoo Christian prelate of high rank, visited Hartford in 1883, and that his one desire was to meet Mark Twain. In some memoranda of this visit Dr. Parker has written:
I said that Mark Twain was a friend of mine, and we wouldimmediately go to his house. He was all eagerness, and I perceivedthat I had risen greatly in this most refined and cultivatedgentleman's estimation. Arriving at Mr. Clemens's residence, Ipromptly sought a brief private interview with my friend for hisenlightenment concerning the distinguished visitor, after which theywere introduced and spent a long while together. In due timeMazoomdar came forth with Mark's likeness and autograph, and as wewalked away his whole air and manner seemed to say, with Simeon ofold, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!”
Howells is of the impression that the “Claimant” play had been offered to other actors before Raymond was made aware of it; but there are letters (to Webster) which indicate that Raymond was to see the play first, though Clemens declares, in a letter of instruction, that he hopes Raymond will not take it. Then he says:
Why do I offer him the play at all? For these reasons: he playsthat character well; there are not thirty actors in the country whocan do it better; and, too, he has a sort of sentimental right to beoffered the piece, though no moral, or legal, or other kind ofright.Therefore we do offer it to him; but only once, not twice. Let ushave no hemming and hawing; make short, sharp work of the business.I decline to have any correspondence with R. myself in any way.
This was at the end of November, 1883, while the play was still being revised. Negotiations with Raymond had already begun, though he does not appear to have actually seen the play during that theatrical season, and many and various were the attempts made to place it elsewhere; always with one result—that each actor or manager, in the end, declared it to be strictly a Raymond play. The thing was hanging fire for nearly a year, altogether, while they were waiting on Raymond, who had a profitable play, and was in no hurry for the recrudescence of Sellers. Howells tells how he eventually took the manuscript to Raymond, whom he found “in a mood of sweet reasonableness” at one of Osgood's luncheons. Raymond said he could not do the play then, but was sure he would like it for the coming season, and in any case would be glad to read it.
In due time Raymond reported favorably on the play, at least so far as the first act was concerned, but he objected to the materialization feature and to Sellers as claimant for the English earldom. He asked that these features be eliminated, or at least much ameliorated; but as these constituted the backbone and purpose of the whole play, Clemens and Howells decided that what was left would be hardly worth while. Raymond finally agreed to try the play as it was in one of the larger towns—Howells thinks in Buffalo. A week later the manuscript came back to Webster, who had general charge of the business negotiations, as indeed he had of all Mark Twain's affairs at this time, and with it a brief line:
DEAR SIR,—I have just finished rereading the play, and am convincedthat in its present form it would not prove successful. I returnthe manuscript by express to your address.Thanking you for your courtesy, I am,Yours truly, JOHN T. RAYMOND.P.S.—If the play is altered and made longer I will be pleased toread it again.
In his former letter Raymond had declared that “Sellers, while a very sanguine man, was not a lunatic, and no one but a lunatic could for a moment imagine that he had done such a work” (meaning the materialization). Clearly Raymond wanted a more serious presentation, something akin to his earlier success, and on the whole we can hardly blame him. But the authors had faith in their performance as it stood, and agreed they would make no change.
Finally a well-known elocutionist, named Burbank, conceived the notion of impersonating Raymond as well as Sellers, making of it a sort of double burlesque, and agreed to take the play on those terms. Burbank came to Hartford and showed what he could do. Howells and Clemens agreed to give him the play, and they hired the old Lyceum Theater for a week, at seven hundred dollars, for its trial presentation. Daniel Frohman promoted it. Clemens and Howells went over the play and made some changes, but they were not as hilarious over it or as full of enthusiasm as they had been in the beginning. Howells put in a night of suffering—long, dark hours of hot and cold waves of fear—and rising next morning from a tossing bed, wrote: “Here's a play which every manager has put out-of-doors and which every actor known to us has refused, and now we go and give it to an elocutioner. We are fools.”
Clemens hurried over to Boston to consult with Howells, and in the end they agreed to pay the seven hundred dollars for the theater, take the play off and give Burbank his freedom. But Clemens's faith in it did not immediately die. Howells relinquished all right and title in it, and Clemens started it out with Burbank and a traveling company, doing one-night stands, and kept it going for a week or more at his own expense. It never reached New York.
“And yet,” says Howells, “I think now that if it had come it would have been successful. So hard does the faith of the unsuccessful dramatist die.”—[This was as late as the spring of 1886, at which time Howells's faith in the play was exceedingly shaky. In one letter he wrote: “It is a lunatic that we have created, and while a lunatic in one act might amuse, I'm afraid that in three he would simply bore.”
And again:
“As it stands, I believe the thing will fail, and it would be a disgrace to have it succeed.”]
Meanwhile, with the completion of the Sellers play Clemens had flung himself into dramatic writing once more with a new and more violent impetuosity than ever. Howells had hardly returned to Boston when he wrote:
Now let's write a tragedy.
The inclosed is not fancy, it is history; except that the little girl wasa passing stranger, and not kin to any of the parties. I read the incidentin Carlyle's Cromwell a year ago, and made a note in my note-book;stumbled on the note to-day, and wrote up the closing scene of a possibletragedy, to see how it might work.
If we made this colonel a grand fellow, and gave him a wife to suit—hey?It's right in the big historical times—war; Cromwell in big,picturesque power, and all that."
Come, let's do this tragedy, and do it well. Curious, but didn't Florencewant a Cromwell? But Cromwell would not be the chief figure here.
It was the closing scene of that pathetic passage in history from which he would later make his story, “The Death Disc.” Howells was too tired and too occupied to undertake immediately a new dramatic labor, so Clemens went steaming ahead alone.
My billiard-table is stacked up with books relating to the SandwichIslands; the walls are upholstered with scraps of paper penciledwith notes drawn from them. I have saturated myself with knowledgeof that unimaginably beautiful land and that most strange andfascinating people. And I have begun a story. Its hidden motivewill illustrate a but-little considered fact in human nature: thatthe religious folly you are born in you will die in, no matter whatapparently reasonabler religious folly may seem to have taken itsplace; meanwhile abolished and obliterated it. I start BillRagsdale at eleven years of age, and the heroine at four, in themidst of the ancient idolatrous system, with its picturesque andamazing customs and superstitions, three months before the arrivalof the missionaries and—the erection of a shallow Christianity uponthe ruins of the old paganism.Then these two will become educated Christians and highly civilized.And then I will jump fifteen years and do Ragsdale's leper business.When we come to dramatize, we can draw a deal of matter from thestory, all ready to our hand.
He made elaborate preparations for the Sandwich Islands story, which he and Howells would dramatize later, and within the space of a few weeks he actually did dramatize 'The Prince and the Pauper' and 'Tom Sawyer', and was prodding Webster to find proper actors or managers; stipulating at first severe and arbitrary terms, which were gradually modified, as one after another of the prospective customers found these dramatic wares unsuited to their needs. Mark Twain was one of the most dramatic creatures that ever lived, but he lacked the faculty of stage arrangement of the dramatic idea. It is one of the commonest defects in the literary make-up; also one of the hardest to realize and to explain.
The winter of 1883-84 was a gay one in the Clemens home. Henry Irving was among those entertained, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Aldrich and his wife, Howells of course, and George W. Cable. Cable had now permanently left the South for the promised land which all authors of the South and West seek eventually, and had in due course made his way to Hartford. Clemens took Cable's fortunes in hand, as he had done with many another, invited him to his home, and undertook to open negotiations with the American Publishing Company, of which Frank Bliss was now the manager, for the improvement of his fortunes.
Cable had been giving readings from his stories and had somewhere picked up the measles. He suddenly came down with the complaint during his visit to Clemens, and his case was a violent one. It required the constant attendance of a trained nurse and one or two members of the household to pull him through.
In the course of time he was convalescent, and when contagion was no longer to be feared guests were invited in for his entertainment. At one of these gatherings, Cable produced a curious book, which he said had been lent to him by Prof. Francis Bacon, of New Haven, as a great rarity. It was a little privately printed pamphlet written by a Southern youth, named S. Watson Wolston, a Yale student of 1845, and was an absurd romance of the hyperflorid, grandiloquent sort, entitled, “Love Triumphant, or the Enemy Conquered.” Its heroine's name was Ambulinia, and its flowery, half-meaningless periods and impossible situations delighted Clemens beyond measure. He begged Cable to lend it to him, to read at the Saturday Morning Club, declaring that he certainly must own the book, at whatever cost. Henry C. Robinson, who was present, remembered having seen a copy in his youth, and Twichell thought he recalled such a book on sale in New Haven during his college days. Twichell said nothing as to any purpose in the matter; but somewhat later, being in New Haven, he stepped into the old book-store and found the same proprietor, who remembered very well the book and its author. Twichell rather fearfully asked if by any chance a copy of it might still be obtained.
“Well,” was the answer, “I undertook to put my cellar in order the other day, and found about a cord of them down there. I think I can supply you.”
Twichell took home six of the books at ten cents each, and on their first spring walk to Talcott's Tower casually mentioned to Clemens the quest for the rare Ambulinia. But Clemens had given up the pursuit. New York dealers had reported no success in the matter. The book was no longer in existence.
“What would you give for a copy?” asked Twichell.
Clemens became excited.
“It isn't a question of price,” he said; “that would be for the owner to set if I could find him.”
Twichell drew a little package from his pocket.
“Well, Mark,” he said, “here are six copies of that book, to begin with. If that isn't enough, I can get you a wagon-load.”
It was enough. But it did not deter Clemens in his purpose, which was to immortalize the little book by pointing out its peculiar charms. He did this later, and eventually included the entire story, with comments, in one of his own volumes.
Clemens and Twichell did not always walk that spring. The early form of bicycle, the prehistoric high-wheel, had come into vogue, and they each got one and attempted its conquest. They practised in the early morning hours on Farmington Avenue, which was wide and smooth, and they had an instructor, a young German, who, after a morning or two, regarded Mark Twain helplessly and said:
“Mr. Clemens, it's remarkable—you can fall off of a bicycle more different ways than the man that invented it.”
They were curious things, those old high-wheel machines. You were perched away up in the air, with the feeling that you were likely at any moment to strike a pebble or something that would fling you forward with damaging results. Frequently that is what happened. The word “header” seems to have grown out of that early bicycling period. Perhaps Mark Twain invented it. He had enough experience to do it. He always declared afterward that he invented all the new bicycle profanity that has since come into general use. Once he wrote:
There was a row of low stepping-stones across one end of the street,a measured yard apart. Even after I got so I could steer prettyfairly I was so afraid of those stones that I always hit them. Theygave me the worst falls I ever got in that street, except thosewhich I got from dogs. I have seen it stated that no expert isquick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skipout of his way. I think that that may be true; but I think that thereason he couldn't run over the dog was because he was trying to. Idid not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that camealong. I think it makes a great deal of difference. If you try torun over the dog he knows how to calculate, but if you are trying tomiss him he does not know how to calculate, and is liable to jumpthe wrong way every time. It was always so in my experience. Evenwhen I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that came to see mepractise. They all liked to see me practise, and they all came, forthere was very little going on in our neighborhood to entertain adog.
He conquered, measurably, that old, discouraging thing, and he and Twichell would go on excursions, sometimes as far as Wethersfield or to the tower. It was a pleasant change, at least it was an interesting one; but bicycling on the high wheel was never a popular diversion with Mark Twain, and his enthusiasm in the sport had died before the “safety” came along.
He had his machine sent out to Elmira, but there were too many hills in Chemung County, and after one brief excursion he came in, limping and pushing his wheel, and did not try it again.
To return to Cable. When the 1st of April (1884) approached he concluded it would be a good time to pay off his debt of gratitude for his recent entertainment in the Clemens's home. He went to work at it systematically. He had a “private and confidential” circular letter printed, and he mailed it to one hundred and fifty of Mark Twain's literary friends in Boston, Hartford, Springfield, New York, Brooklyn, Washington, and elsewhere, suggesting that they write to him, so that their letters would reach him simultaneously April 1st, asking for his autograph. No stamps or cards were to be inclosed for reply, and it was requested that “no stranger to Mr. Clemens and no minor” should take part. Mrs. Clemens was let into the secret, so that she would see to it that her husband did not reject his mail or commit it to the flames unopened.
It would seem that every one receiving the invitation must have responded to it, for on the morning of April 1st a stupefying mass of letters was unloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not know what to make of it, and Mrs. Clemens stood off to watch the results. The first one he opened was from Dean Sage, a friend whom he valued highly. Sage wrote from Brooklyn:
DEAR CLEMENS,—I have recently been asked by a young lady whounfortunately has a mania for autograph-collecting, but otherwise isa charming character, and comely enough to suit your fastidioustaste, to secure for her the sign manual of the few distinguishedpersons fortunate enough to have my acquaintance. In enumeratingthem to her, after mentioning the names of Geo. Shepard Page, JoeMichell, Capt. Isaiah Ryndus, Mr. Willard, Dan Mace, and J. L.Sullivan, I came to yours. “Oh!” said she, “I have read all hisworks—Little Breeches, The Heathen Chinee, and the rest—and thinkthem delightful. Do oblige me by asking him for his autograph,preceded by any little sentiment that may occur to him, provided itis not too short.”Of course I promised, and hope you will oblige me by sending somelittle thing addressed to Miss Oakes.We are all pretty well at home just now, though indisposition hasbeen among us for the past fortnight. With regards to Mrs. Clemensand the children, in which my wife joins,Yours truly, DEAN SAGE.
It amused and rather surprised him, and it fooled him completely; but when he picked up a letter from Brander Matthews, asking, in some absurd fashion, for his signature, and another from Ellen Terry, and from Irving, and from Stedman, and from Warner, and Waring, and H. C. Bunner, and Sarony, and Laurence Hutton, and John Hay, and R. U. Johnson, and Modjeska, the size and quality of the joke began to overawe him. He was delighted, of course; for really it was a fine compliment, in its way, and most of the letters were distinctly amusing. Some of them asked for autographs by the yard, some by the pound. Henry Irving said:
I have just got back from a very late rehearsal-five o'clock—verytired—but there will be no rest till I get your autograph.
Some requested him to sit down and copy a few chapters from The Innocents Abroad for them or to send an original manuscript. Others requested that his autograph be attached to a check of interesting size. John Hay suggested that he copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's “Night Thoughts,” and an equal amount of Pollak's “Course of Time.”
I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, andit will add considerable commercial value to have them in yourhandwriting.
Altogether the reading of the letters gave him a delightful day, and his admiration for Cable grew accordingly. Cable, too, was pleased with the success of his joke, though he declared he would never risk such a thing again. A newspaper of the time reports him as saying:
I never suffered so much agony as for a few days previous to the 1stof April. I was afraid the letters would reach Mark when he was inaffliction, in which case all of us would never have ceased flyingto make it up to him.When I visited Mark we used to open our budgets of letters togetherat breakfast. We used to sing out whenever we struck an autograph-hunter. I think the idea came from that. The first person I spoketo about it was Robert Underwood Johnson, of the Century. My mostenthusiastic ally was the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. We never thoughtit would get into the papers. I never played a practical jokebefore. I never will again, certainly.
Mark Twain in those days did not encourage the regular autograph-collectors, and seldom paid any attention to their requests for his signature. He changed all this in later years, and kept a supply always on hand to satisfy every request; but in those earlier days he had no patience with collecting fads, and it required a particularly pleasing application to obtain his signature.
Samuel Clemens by this time was definitely engaged in the publishing business. Webster had a complete office with assistants at 658 Broadway, and had acquired a pretty thorough and practical knowledge of subscription publishing. He was a busy, industrious young man, tirelessly energetic, and with a good deal of confidence, by no means unnecessary to commercial success. He placed this mental and physical capital against Mark Twain's inspiration and financial backing, and the combination of Charles L. Webster & Co. seemed likely to be a strong one.
Already, in the spring of 1884, Webster had the new Mark Twain book, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', well in hand, and was on the watch for promising subscription books by other authors. Clemens, with his usual business vision and eye for results, with a generous disregard of detail, was supervising the larger preliminaries, and fulminating at the petty distractions and difficulties as they came along. Certain plays he was trying to place were enough to keep him pretty thoroughly upset during this period, and proof-reading never added to his happiness. To Howells he wrote:
My days are given up to cursings, both loud and deep, for I amreading the 'Huck Finn' proofs. They don't make a very great manymistakes, but those that do occur are of a nature that make a manswear his teeth loose.
Whereupon Howells promptly wrote him that he would help him out with the Huck Finn proofs for the pleasure of reading the story. Clemens, among other things, was trying to place a patent grape-scissors, invented by Howells's father, so that there was, in some degree, an equivalent for the heavy obligation. That it was a heavy one we gather from his fervent acknowledgment:
It took my breath away, and I haven't recovered it yet, entirely—Imean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of HuckFinn.Now, if you mean it, old man—if you are in earnest-proceed, inGod's name, and be by me forever blessed. I can't conceive of arational man deliberately piling such an atrocious job upon himself.But if there be such a man, and you be that man, pile it on. Theproof-reading of 'The Prince and the Pauper' cost me the last ragsof my religion.
Clemens decided to have the Huckleberry Finn book illustrated after his own ideas. He looked through the various comic papers to see if he could find the work of some new man that appealed to his fancy. In the pages of Life he discovered some comic pictures illustrating the possibility of applying electrical burners to messenger boys, waiters, etc. The style and the spirit of these things amused him. He instructed Webster to look up the artist, who proved to be a young man, E. W. Kemble by name, later one of our foremost cartoonists. Webster engaged Kemble and put the manuscript in his hands. Through the publication of certain chapters of Huck Finn in the Century Magazine, Kemble was brought to the notice of its editors, who wrote Clemens that they were profoundly indebted to him for unearthing “such a gem of an illustrator.”
Clemens, encouraged and full of enthusiasm, now endeavored to interest himself in the practical details of manufacture, but his stock of patience was light and the details were many. His early business period resembles, in some of its features, his mining experience in Esmeralda, his letters to Webster being not unlike those to Orion in that former day. They are much oftener gentle, considerate, even apologetic, but they are occasionally terse, arbitrary, and profane. It required effort for him to be entirely calm in his business correspondence. A criticism of one of Webster's assistants will serve as an example of his less quiet method: