The Boys' Life of Mark Twain Part 20

x.x.xIV.

A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS

But if Mark Twain could find nothing to write of in England, he found no lack of material in America. That winter in Hartford, with Charles Dudley Warner, he wrote "The Gilded Age." The Warners were neighbors, and the families visited back and forth. One night at dinner, when the two husbands were criticizing the novels their wives were reading, the wives suggested that their author husbands write a better one. The challenge was accepted. On the spur of the moment Warner and Clemens agreed that they would write a book together, and began it immediately.

Clemens had an idea already in mind. It was to build a romance around that lovable dreamer, his mother's cousin, James Lampton, whom the reader will recall from an earlier chapter. Without delay he set to work and soon completed the first three hundred and ninety-nine pages of the new story. Warner came over and, after listening to its reading, went home and took up the story. In two months the novel was complete, Warner doing most of the romance, Mark Twain the character parts. Warner's portion was probably pure fiction, but Mark Twain's chapters were full of history.

Judge Hawkins and wife were Mark Twain's father and mother; Washington Hawkins, his brother Orion. Their doings, with those of James Lampton as Colonel Sellers, were, of course, elaborated, but the story of the Tennessee land, as told in that book, is very good history indeed. Laura Hawkins, however, was only real in the fact that she bore the name of Samuel Clemens's old playmate. "The Gilded Age," published later in the year, was well received and sold largely. The character of Colonel Sellers at once took a place among the great fiction characters of the world, and is probably the best known of any American creation. His watchword, "There's millions in it!" became a byword.

The Clemenses decided to build in Hartford. They bought a plot of land on Farmington Avenue, in the literary neighborhood, and engaged an architect and builder. By spring, the new house was well under way, and, matters progressing so favorably, the owners decided to take a holiday while the work was going on. Clemens had been eager to show England to his wife; so, taking little Sissy, now a year old, they sailed in May, to be gone half a year.

They remained for a time in London--a period of honors and entertainment.

If Mark Twain had been a lion on his first visit, he was hardly less than royalty now. His rooms at the Langham Hotel were like a court. The nation's most distinguished men--among them Robert Browning, Sir John Millais, Lord Houghton, and Sir Charles Dilke--came to pay their respects. Authors were calling constantly. Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins could not get enough of Mark Twain. Reade proposed to join with him in writing a novel, as Warner had done. Lewis Carroll did not call, being too timid, but they met the author of "Alice in Wonderland" one night at a dinner, "the shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remiss, I ever saw," Mark Twain once declared.

Little Sissy and her father thrived on London life, but it wore on Mrs.

Clemens. At the end of July they went quietly to Edinburgh, and settled at Veitch's Hotel, on George Street. The strain of London life had been too much for Mrs. Clemens, and her health became poor. Unacquainted in Edinburgh, Clemens only remembered that Dr. John Brown, author of "Rab and His Friends," lived there. Learning the address, he walked around to 23 Rutland Street, and made himself known. Doctor Brown came forthwith, and Mrs. Clemens seemed better from the moment of his arrival.

The acquaintance did not end there. For a month the author of "Rab" and the little Clemens family were together daily. Often they went with him to make his round of visits. He was always leaning out of the carriage to look at dogs. It was told of him that once when he suddenly put his head from a carriage window he dropped back with a disappointed look.

"Who was it?" asked his companion. "Some one you know?"

"No, a dog I don't know."

Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Scotland, and his story of "Rab" had won him a world-wide following. Children adored him. Little Susy and he were playmates, and he named her "Megalopis," a Greek term, suggested by her great, dark eyes.

Mark Twain kept his promise to lecture to a London audience. On the 13th of October, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, he gave "Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands." The house was packed. Clemens was not introduced. He appeared on the platform in evening dress, a.s.suming the character of a manager, announcing a disappointment. Mr.

Clemens, he said, had fully expected to be present. He paused, and loud murmurs arose from the audience. He lifted his hand and the noise subsided. Then he added, "I am happy to say that Mark Twain is present and will now give his lecture." The audience roared its approval.

He continued his lectures at Hanover Square through the week, and at no time in his own country had he won such a complete triumph. He was the talk of the streets. The papers were full of him. The "London Times"

declared his lectures had only whetted the public appet.i.te for more. His manager, George Dolby (formerly manager for Charles d.i.c.kens), urged him to remain and continue the course through the winter. Clemens finally agreed that he would take his family back to America and come back himself within the month. This plan he carried out. Returning to London, he lectured steadily for two months in the big Hanover Square rooms, giving his "Roughing It" address, and it was only toward the end that his audience showed any sign of diminishing. There is probably no other such a lecture triumph on record.

Mark Twain was at the pinnacle of his first glory: thirty-six, in full health, prosperous, sought by the world's greatest, hailed in the highest places almost as a king. Tom Sawyer's dreams of greatness had been all too modest. In its most dazzling moments his imagination had never led him so far.

x.x.xV.

BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER"

It was at the end of January, 1874, when Mark Twain returned to America.

His reception abroad had increased his prestige at home. Howells and Aldrich came over from Boston to tell him what a great man he had become --to renew those Boston days of three years before--to talk and talk of all the things between the earth and sky. And Twich.e.l.l came in, of course, and Warner, and no one took account of time, or hurried, or worried about anything at all.

"We had two such days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round,"

wrote Howells, long after, and he tells how he and Aldrich were so carried away with Clemens's success in subscription publication that on the way back to Boston they planned a book to sell in that way. It was to be called "Twelve Memorable Murders," and they had made two or three fortunes from it by the time they reached Boston.

"But the project ended there. We never killed a single soul," Howells once confessed to the writer of this memoir.

At Quarry Farm that summer Mark Twain began the writing of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He had been planning for some time to set down the story of those far-off days along the river-front at Hannibal, with John Briggs, Tom Blankenship, and the rest of that graceless band, and now in the cool luxury of a little study which Mrs. Crane had built for him on the hillside he set himself to spin the fabric of his youth.

The study was a delightful place to work. It was octagonal in shape, with windows on all sides, something like a pilot-house. From any direction the breeze could come, and there were fine views. To Twich.e.l.l he wrote:

"It is a cozy nest, and just room in it for a sofa, table, and three or four chairs, and when the storm sweeps down the remote valley and the lightning flashes behind the hills beyond, and the rain beats on the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it!"

He worked steadily there that summer. He would begin mornings, soon after breakfast, keeping at it until nearly dinner-time, say until five or after, for it was not his habit to eat the midday meal. Other members of the family did not venture near the place; if he was wanted urgently, a horn was blown. His work finished, he would light a cigar and, stepping lightly down the stone flight that led to the house-level, he would find where the family had a.s.sembled and read to them his day's work. Certainly those were golden days, and the tale of Tom and Huck and Joe Harper progressed. To Dr. John Brown, in Scotland, he wrote:

"I have been writing fifty pages of ma.n.u.script a day, on an average, for some time now, .. . . and consequently have been so wrapped up in it and dead to everything else that I have fallen mighty short in letter-writing."

But the inspiration of Tom and Huck gave out when the tale was half finished, or perhaps it gave way to a new interest. News came one day that a writer in San Francisco, without permission, had dramatized "The Gilded Age," and that it was being played by John T. Raymond, an actor of much power. Mark Twain had himself planned to dramatize the character of Colonel Sellers and had taken out dramatic copyright. He promptly stopped the California production, then wrote the dramatist a friendly letter, and presently bought the play of him, and set in to rewrite it.

It proved a great success. Raymond played it for several years. Colonel Sellers on the stage became fully as popular as in the book, and very profitable indeed.

x.x.xVI.

THE NEW HOME

The new home in Hartford was ready that autumn--the beautiful house finished, or nearly finished, the handsome furnishings in place. It was a lovely spot. There were trees and gra.s.s--a green, shady slope that fell away to a quiet stream. The house itself, quite different from the most of the houses of that day, had many wings and balconies, and toward the back a great veranda that looked down the shaded slope. The kitchen was not at the back. As Mark Twain was unlike any other man that ever lived, so his house was not like other houses. When asked why he built the kitchen toward the street, he said:

"So the servants can see the circus go by without running into the front yard."

But this was probably his afterthought. The kitchen wing extended toward Farmington Avenue, but it was a harmonious detail of the general plan.

Many frequenters have tried to express the charm of Mark Twain's household. Few have succeeded, for it lay not in the house itself, nor in its furnishings, beautiful as these things were, but in the personality of its occupants--the daily round of their lives--the atmosphere which they unconsciously created. From its wide entrance-hall and tiny, jewel like conservatory below to the billiard-room at the top of the house, it seemed perfectly appointed, serenely ordered, and full of welcome. The home of one of the most unusual and unaccountable personalities in the world was filled with gentleness and peace. It was Mrs. Clemens who was chiefly responsible. She was no longer the half-timid, inexperienced girl he had married. a.s.sociation, study, and travel had brought her knowledge and confidence. When the great ones of the world came to visit America's most picturesque literary figure, she gave welcome to them, and filled her place at his side with such sweet grace that those who came to pay their dues to him often returned to pay still greater devotion to his companion. William Dean Howells, so often a visitor there, once said to the writer:

"Words cannot express Mrs. Clemens--her fineness, her delicate, wonderful tact." And again, "She was not only a beautiful soul, but a woman of singular intellectual power."

There were always visitors in the Clemens home. Above the mantel in the library was written: "The ornament of a house is the friends that frequent it," and the Clemens home never lacked of those ornaments, and they were of the world's best. No distinguished person came to America that did not pay a visit to Hartford and Mark Twain. Generally it was not merely a call, but a stay of days. The welcome was always genuine, the entertainment unstinted. George Warner, a close neighbor, once said:

"The Clemens house was the only one I have ever known where there was never any preoccupation in the evenings and where visitors were always welcome. Clemens was the best kind of a host; his evenings after dinner were an unending flow of stories."

As for friends living near, they usually came and went at will, often without the ceremony of knocking or formal leave-taking. The two Warner famines were among these, the home of Charles Dudley Warner being only a step away. Dr. and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe were also close neighbors, while the Twich.e.l.l parsonage was not far. They were all like one great family, of which Mark Twain's home was the central gathering-place.

x.x.xVII.

"OLD TIMES," "SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER"

The Rev. Joseph H. Twich.e.l.l and Mark Twain used to take many long walks together, and once they decided to walk from Hartford to Boston--about one hundred miles. They decided to allow three days for the trip, and really started one morning, with some luncheon in a basket, and a little bag of useful articles. It was a bright, brisk November day, and they succeeded in getting to Westford, a distance of twenty-eight miles, that evening. But they were lame and foot-sore, and next morning, when they had limped six miles or so farther, Clemens telegraphed to Redpath:

"We have made thirty-five miles in less than five days. This shows the thing can be done. Shall finish now by rail. Did you have any bets on us?"

He also telegraphed Howells that they were about to arrive in Boston, and they did, in fact, reach the Howells home about nine o'clock, and found excellent company--the Cambridge set--and a most welcome supper waiting.

Clemens and Twich.e.l.l were ravenous. Clemens demanded food immediately.

Howells writes: