I have had a tip-top time, here, for a few days (guest of Mr. Jno. Hookers family Beechers relatives-in a general way of Mr. Bliss, also, who is head of the publishing firm.) Puritans are mighty straight-laced and they wont let me smoke in the parlor, but the Almighty dont make any better people.
Love to all-good-bye. I shall be in New York 3 days then go on to the Capital.
Yrs affly, especially Ma.,
Yr Sam.
I have to make a speech at the annual Herald dinner on the 6th of May.
No formal contract for the book had been made when this letter was written. A verbal agreement between Bliss and Clemens had been reached, to be ratified by an exchange of letters in the near future. Bliss had made two propositions, viz., ten thousand dollars, cash in hand, or a 5-per-cent royalty on the selling price of the book. The cash sum offered looked very large to Mark Twain, and he was sorely tempted to accept it. He had faith, however, in the book, and in Blisss ability to sell it. He agreed, therefore, to the royalty proposition; The best business judgment I ever displayed he often declared in after years. Five per cent royalty sounds rather small in these days of more liberal contracts. But the American Publishing Company sold its books only by subscription, and the agents commissions and delivery expenses ate heavily into the profits. Clemens was probably correct in saying that his percentage was larger than had been paid to any previous author except Horace Greeley. The John Hooker mentioned was the husband of Henry Ward Beechers sister, Isabel. It was easy to understand the Beecher familys robust appreciation of Mark Twain.
From the office of Dan Slote, his room-mate of the Quaker CityDan of the Innocents Clemens wrote his letter that closed the agreement with Bliss.
*****
To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford:
Office of Slote & Woodman, Blank Book Manufacturers,
Nos. 119121 William St.
New York, January 27, 1868.
Mr. E. Bliss, Jr.
Secy American Publishing Co.
Hartford Conn.
Dear sir, Your favor of Jan. 25th is received, and in reply, I will say that I accede to your several propositions, viz: That I furnish to the American Publishing Company, through you, with mss sufficient for a volume of 500 to 600 pages, the subject to be the Quaker City, the voyage, description of places, &c., and also embodying the substance of the letters written by me during that trip, said mss to be ready about the first of August, next, I to give all the usual and necessary attention in preparing said mss for the press, and in preparation of illustrations, in correction of proofs no use to be made by me of the material for this work in any way which will conflict with its interest the book to be sold by the American Publishing Co., by subscription and for said Ms and labor on my part said Company to pay me a copyright of 5 percent, upon the subscription price of the book for all copies sold.
As further proposed by you, this understanding, herein set forth shall be considered a binding contract upon all parties concerned, all minor details to be arranged between us hereafter.
Very truly yours,
Sam. L. Clemens.
(Private and General.)
I was to have gone to Washington tonight, but have held over a day, to attend a dinner given by a lot of newspaper Editors and literary scalliwags, at the Westminster Hotel. Shall go down to-morrow, if I survive the banquet.
Yrs truly,
Sam. Clemens.
Mark Twain, in Washington, was in line for political preferment: His wide acquaintance on the Pacific slope, his new fame and growing popularity, his powerful and dreaded pen, all gave him special distinction at the capital. From time to time the offer of one office or another tempted him, but he wisely, or luckily, resisted. In his letters home are presented some of his problems.
*****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
224 F. Street Washington Feb. 6, 1868.
My dear mother and sister, For two months there have been some fifty applications before the government for the postmastership of San Francisco, which is the heaviest concentration of political power on the coast and consequently is a post which is much coveted.,
When I found that a personal friend of mine, the Chief Editor of the Alta was an applicant I said I didnt want it I would not take $10,000 a year out of a friends pocket.
The two months have passed, I heard day before yesterday that a new and almost unknown candidate had suddenly turned up on the inside track, and was to be appointed at once. I didnt like that, and went after his case in a fine passion. I hunted up all our Senators and representatives and found that his name was actually to come from the President early in the morning.
Then Judge Field said if I wanted the place he could pledge me the Presidents appointment and Senator Conness said he would guarantee me the Senates confirmation. It was a great temptation, but it would render it impossible to fill my book contract, and I had to drop the idea.
I have to spend August and September in Hartford which isnt San Francisco. Mr. Conness offers me any choice out of five influential California offices. Now, some day or other I shall want an office and then, just my luck, I cant get it, I suppose.
They want to send me abroad, as a Consul or a Minister. I said I didnt want any of the pie. God knows I am mean enough and lazy enough, now, without being a foreign consul.
Sometime in the course of the present century I think they will create a Commissioner of Patents, and then I hope to get a berth for Orion.
I published 6 or 7 letters in the Tribune while I was gone, now I cannot get them. I suppose I must have them copied.
Love to all,
Sam.
Orion Clemens was once more a candidate for office: Nevada had become a State; with regularly elected officials, and Orion had somehow missed being chosen. His day of authority had passed, and the law having failed to support him, he was again back at his old occupation, setting type in St. Louis. He was, as ever, full of dreams and inventions that would some day lead to fortune. With the gift of the Sellers imagination, inherited by all the family, he lacked the driving power which means achievement. More and more as the years went by he would lean upon his brother for moral and physical support. The chances for him in Washington do not appear to have been bright. The political situation under Andrew Johnson was not a happy one.
*****
To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:
224 F. Street, wash., Feb. 21. (1868)
My dear Bro., I am glad you do not want the clerkship, for that Patent Office is in such a muddle that there would be no security for the permanency of a place in it. The same remarkwill apply to all offices here, now, and no doubt will, till the close of the present administration.
Any man who holds a place here, now, stands prepared at all times to vacate it. You are doing, now, exactly what I wanted you to do a year ago.
We chase phantoms half the days of our lives.
It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other half.
I am in for it. I must go on chasing them until I marry then I am done with literature and all other bosh, that is, literature wherewith to please the general public.
I am in for it. I must go on chasing them until I marry then I am done with literature and all other bosh, that is, literature wherewith to please the general public.
I shall write to please myself, then. I hope you will set type till you complete that invention, for surely government pap must be nauseating food for a man a man whom God has enabled to saw wood and be independent. It really seemed to me a falling from grace, the idea of going back to San Francisco nothing better than a mere postmaster, albeit the public would have thought I came with gilded honors, and in great glory.
I only retain correspondence enough, now, to make a living for myself, and have discarded all else, so that I may have time to spare for the book. Drat the thing, I wish it were done, or that I had no other writing to do.
This is the place to get a poor opinion of everybody in. There isnt one man in Washington, in civil office, who has the brains of Anson Burlingame and I suppose if China had not seized and saved his great talents to the world, this government would have discarded him when his time was up.
There are more pitiful intellects in this Congress! Oh, geeminy! There are few of them that I find pleasant enough company to visit.
I am most infernally tired of Wash. and its attractions. To be busy is a mans only happiness and I am otherwise I should die.
Yrs. aff,
Sam.
The secretarial position with Senator Stewart was short-lived. One cannot imagine Mark Twain as anybodys secretary, and doubtless there was little to be gained on either side by the arrangement. They parted without friction, though in later years, when Stewart had become old and irascible, he used to recount a list of grievances and declare that he had been obliged to threaten violence in order to bring Mark to terms; but this was because the author of Roughing It had in that book taken liberties with the Senator, to the extent of an anecdote and portrait which, though certainly harmless enough, had for some reason given deep offense.
Mark Twain really had no time for secretary work. For one thing he was associated with John Swinton in supplying a Washington letter to a list of newspapers, and then he was busy collecting his Quaker City letters, and preparing the copy for his book. Matters were going well enough, when trouble developed from an unexpected quarter. The Alta-California had copyrighted the letters and proposed to issue them in book form. There had been no contract which would prevent this, and the correspondence which Clemens undertook with the Alta management led to nothing. He knew that he had powerful friends among the owners, if he could reach them personally, and he presently concluded to return to San Francisco, make what arrangement he could, and finish his book there. It was his fashion to be prompt; in his next letter we find him already on the way.
*****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:
At sea, Sunday, March 15, Lat. 25. (1868)
Dear folks, I have nothing to write, except that I am well that the weather is fearfully hot-that the Henry Chauncey is a magnificent ship that we have twelve hundred, passengers on board that I have two staterooms, and so am not crowded that I have many pleasant friends here, and the people are not so stupid as on the Quaker City that we had Divine Service in the main saloon at 10.30 this morning that we expect to meet the upward bound vessel in Latitude 23, and this is why I am writing now.
We shall reach Aspinwall Thursday morning at 6 oclock, and San Francisco less than two weeks later. I worry a great deal about being obliged to go without seeing you all, but it could not be helped.
Dan Slote, my splendid room-mate in the Quaker City and the noblest man on earth, will call to see you within a month. Make him dine with you and spend the evening. His house is my home always in. New York.
Yrs affy,
Sam.
The San Francisco trip proved successful. Once on the ground Clemens had little difficulty in convincing the Alta publishers that they had received full value in the newspaper use of the letters, and that the book rights remained with the author. A letter to Bliss conveys the situation.
*****
To Elisha Bliss, Jr., in Hartford:
San Francisco, May 5, 68.
E. Bliss, Jr. Esq.
Dr. Sir, The Alta people, after some hesitation, have given me permission to use my printed letters, and have ceased to think of publishing them themselves in book form. I am steadily at work, and shall start East with the completed Manuscript, about the middle of June.
I lectured here, on the trip, the other night-over sixteen hundred dollars in gold in the house every seat taken and paid for before night.
Yrs truly,
Mark Twain.
But he did not sail in June. His friends persuaded him to cover his lecture circuit of two years before, telling the story of his travels. This he did with considerable profit, being everywhere received with great honors. He ended this tour with a second lecture in San Francisco, announced in a droll and characteristic fashion which delighted his Pacific admirers, and insured him a crowded house.[11]
His agreement had been to deliver his Ms. about August 1st. Returning by the Chauncey, July 28th, he was two days later in Hartford, and had placid the copy for the new book in Blisss hands. It was by no means a compilation of his newspaper letters. His literary vision was steadily broadening. All of the letters had been radically edited, some had been rewritten, some entirely eliminated. He probably thought very well of the book, an opinion shared by Bliss, but it is unlikely that either of them realized that it was to become a permanent classic, and the best selling book of travel for at least fifty years.
IX. Letters 1868-70. Courtship, And The Innocents Abroad
The story of Mark Twains courtship has been fully told in the completer story of his life; it need only be briefly sketched here as a setting for the letters of this period. In his letter of January 8th we note that he expects to go to Elmira for a few days as soon as he has time.
But he did not have time, or perhaps did not receive a pressing invitation until he had returned with his Ms. from California. Then, through young Charles Langdon, his Quaker City shipmate, he was invited to Elmira. The invitation was given for a week, but through a subterfuge unpremeditated, and certainly fair enough in a matter of love-he was enabled to considerably prolong his visit. By the end of his stay he had become really like one of the family, though certainly not yet accepted as such. The fragmentary letter that follows reflects something of his pleasant situation. The Mrs. Fairbanks mentioned in this letter had been something more than a shipmother to Mark Twain. She was a woman of fine literary taste, and Quaker City correspondent for her husbands paper, the Cleveland Herald. She had given Mark Twain sound advice as to his letters, which he had usually read to her, and had in no small degree modified his early natural tendency to exaggeration and outlandish humor. He owed her much, and never failed to pay her tribute.
*****
Fragment of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:
Elmira, N.Y. Aug. 26, 1868.
Dear folks, You see I am progressing though slowly. I shall be here a week yet maybe two for Charlie Langdon cannot get away until his fathers chief business man returns from a journey and a visit to Mrs. Fairbanks, at Cleveland, would lose half its pleasure if Charlie were not along. Moulton of St. Louis ought to be there too. We three were Mrs. Fs cubs, in the Quaker City. She took good care that we were at church regularly on Sundays; at the 8-bells prayer meeting every night; and she kept our buttons sewed on and our clothing in order and in a word was as busy and considerate, and as watchful over her family of uncouth and unruly cubs, and as patient and as long-suffering, withal, as a natural mother. So we expect..