Mark Twain's Letters Part 38

Clemens had no desire to refuse; he sent word that he would come, and followed it with a characteristic line.

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.

Twich.e.l.l 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.

To T. B. Aldrich, in Ponkapog, Ma.s.s.

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, Twich.e.l.l 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 remarks from 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.

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 Twich.e.l.l 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."

XV. LETTERS FROM HARTFORD, 1875. MUCH CORRESPONDENCE WITH HOWELLS

Orion Clemens had kept his job with Bliss only a short time. His mental make-up was such that it was difficult for him to hold any position long. He meant to do well, but he was unfortunate in his efforts. His ideas were seldom practical, his nature was yielding and fickle. He had returned to Keokuk presently, and being convinced there was a fortune in chickens, had prevailed upon his brother to purchase for him a little farm not far from the town. But the chicken business was not lively and Orion kept the mail hot with ma.n.u.scripts and propositions of every sort, which he wanted his brother to take under advis.e.m.e.nt.