And wouldnt I love to take old Stoker by the hand, and wouldnt I love to see him in his great specialty, his wonderful rendition of Rinalds in the Burning Shame! Where is Dick and what is he doing? Give him my fervent love and warm old remembrances.
A week from today I shall be married to a girl even better, and lovelier than the peerless Chapparal Quails. You cant come so far, Jim, but still I cordially invite you to come, anyhow and I invite Dick, too. And if you two boys were to land here on that pleasant occasion, we would make you right royally welcome.
Truly your friend,
Sam L. Clemens.
P. S. California plums are good, Jim particularly when they are stewed.
Steve Gillis, who sent a copy of his letter to the writer, added: Dick Stoker dear, gentle unselfish old Dick-died over three years ago, aged 78. I am sure it will be a melancholy pleasure to Mark to know that Dick lived in comfort all his later life, sincerely loved and respected by all who knew him. He never left Jackass Hill. He struck a pocket years ago containing enough not only to build himself a comfortable house near his old cabin, but to last him, without work, to his painless end. He was a Mason, and was buried by the Order in Sonora.
The Quailsthe beautiful, the innocent, the wild little Quails lived way out in the Chapparal; on a little ranch near the Stanislaus River, with their father and mother. They were famous for their beauty and had many suitors.
The mention of California plums refers to some inedible fruit which Gillis once, out of pure goodness of heart, bought of a poor wandering squaw, and then, to conceal his motive, declared that they were something rare and fine, and persisted in eating them, though even when stewed they nearly choked him.
X. Letters 1870-71. Mark Twain In Buffalo. Marriage. The Buffalo Express. Memoranda. Lectures. A New Book
Samuel L. Clemens and Olivia Langdon were married in the Langdon home at Elmira, February 2, 1870, and took up their residence in Buffalo in a beautiful home, a wedding present from the brides father. The story of their wedding, and the amusing circumstances connected with their establishment in Buffalo, have been told elsewhere.[12] Mark Twain now believed that he was through with lecturing. Two letters to Redpath, his agent, express his comfortable condition.
*****
To James Redpath, in Boston:
Buffalo, March 22, 1890.
Dear red, I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us to live and I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, count me out.
Your friend,
S. L. Clemens.
*****
To James Redpath, in Boston:
Elmira, N. Y. May 10, 1870.
Friend Redpath, I guess I am out of the field permanently.
Have got a lovely wife; a lovely house, bewitchingly furnished; a lovely carriage, and a coachman whose style and dignity are simply awe-inspiring nothing less and I am making more money than necessary by considerable, and therefore why crucify myself nightly on the platform. The subscriber will have to be excused from the present season at least.
Remember me to Nasby, Billings and Fall.[13] Luck to you! I am going to print your menagerie, Parton and all, and make comments.
In next Galaxy I give Nasbys friend and mine from Philadelphia (John Quill, a literary thief) a hyste.
Yours always and after.
Mark.
The reference to the Galaxy in the foregoing letter has to do with a department called Memoranda, which he had undertaken to conduct for the new magazine. This work added substantially to his income, and he believed it would be congenial. He was allowed free hand to write and print what he chose, and some of his best work at this time was published in the new department, which he continued for a year.
Mark Twain now seemed to have his affairs well regulated. His mother and sister were no longer far away in St. Louis. Soon after his marriage they had, by his advice, taken up residence at Fredonia, New York, where they could be easily visited from Buffalo.
Altogether, the outlook seemed bright to Mark Twain and his wife, during the first months of their marriage. Then there came a change. In a letter which Clemens wrote to his mother and sister we get the first chapter of disaster.
*****
To Mrs. Jane Clemens, and Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.:
Elmira, N. Y. June 25, 1870.
My dear mother and sister, We were called here suddenly by telegram, 3 days ago. Mr. Langdon is very low. We have well-nigh lost hope all of us except Livy.
Mr. Langdon, whose hope is one of his most prominent characteristics, says himself, this morning, that his recovery is only a possibility, not a probability. He made his will this morning that is, appointed executors nothing else was necessary. The household is sad enough Charley is in Bavaria. We telegraphed Munroe & Co. Paris, to notify Charley to come home they sent the message to Munich. Our message left here at 8 in the morning and Charleys answer arrived less than eight hours afterward. He sailed immediately.
He will reach home two weeks from now. The whole city is troubled. As I write (at the office,) a dispatch arrives from Charley who has reached London, and will sail thence on 28th. He wants news. We cannot send him any.
Affectionately,
Sam.
P. S. I sent $300 to Fredonia Bank for Ma It is in her name.
Mrs. Clemens, herself, was not in the best of health at this time, but devotion to her father took her to his bedside, where she insisted upon standing long, hard watches, the strain of which told upon her severely. Meantime, work must go on; the daily demand of the newspaper and the monthly call of the Memoranda could not go unheeded. Also, Bliss wanted a new book, and met Mark Twain at Elmira to arrange for it. In a letter to Orion we learn of this project.
*****
To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:
Elmira, July 15, 1870
My dear Bro., Per contract I must have another 600-page book ready for my publisher Jan. 2, and I only began it today. The subject of it is a secret, because I may possibly change it. But as it stands, I propose to do up Nevada and Cal., beginning with the trip across the country in the stage. Have you a memorandum of the route we took or the names of any of the Stations we stopped at? Do you remember any of the scenes, names, incidents or adventures of the coach trip? for I remember next to nothing about the matter. Jot down a foolscap page of items for me. I wish I could have two days talk with you.
I suppose I am to get the biggest copyright, this time, ever paid on a subscription book in this country.
Give our love to Mollie. Mr. Langdon is very low.
Yr Bro,
Sam.
The biggest copyright, mentioned in this letter, was a royalty of 7 1/2 per cent., which Bliss had agreed to pay, on the retail price of the book. The book was Roughing It, though this title was not decided upon until considerably later. Orion Clemens eagerly furnished a detailed memorandum of the route of their overland journey, which brought this enthusiastic acknowledgment:
*****
To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:
BUF., 1870.
Dear Bro., I find that your little memorandum book is going to be ever so much use to me, and will enable me to make quite a coherent narrative of the Plains journey instead of slurring it over and jumping 2,000 miles at a stride. The book I am writing will sell. In return for the use of the little memorandum book I shall take the greatest pleasure in forwarding to you the third $1,000 which the publisher of the forthcoming work sends me or the first $1,000, I am not particular they will both be in the first quarterly statement of account from the publisher.
I suppose I am to get the biggest copyright, this time, ever paid on a subscription book in this country.
Give our love to Mollie. Mr. Langdon is very low.
Yr Bro,
Sam.
The biggest copyright, mentioned in this letter, was a royalty of 7 1/2 per cent., which Bliss had agreed to pay, on the retail price of the book. The book was Roughing It, though this title was not decided upon until considerably later. Orion Clemens eagerly furnished a detailed memorandum of the route of their overland journey, which brought this enthusiastic acknowledgment:
*****
To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:
BUF., 1870.
Dear Bro., I find that your little memorandum book is going to be ever so much use to me, and will enable me to make quite a coherent narrative of the Plains journey instead of slurring it over and jumping 2,000 miles at a stride. The book I am writing will sell. In return for the use of the little memorandum book I shall take the greatest pleasure in forwarding to you the third $1,000 which the publisher of the forthcoming work sends me or the first $1,000, I am not particular they will both be in the first quarterly statement of account from the publisher.
In great haste,
Yr Obliged Bro.
Sam.
Love to Mollie. We are all getting along tolerably well.
Mr. Langdon died early in August, and Mrs. Clemens returned to Buffalo, exhausted in mind and body. If she hoped for rest now, in the quiet of her own home, she was disappointed, as the two brief letters that follow clearly show.
*****
To Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.:
Buffalo, Aug. 31, 70.
My dear sister, I know I ought to be thrashed for not writing you, but I have kept putting it off. We get heaps of letters every day; it is a comfort to have somebody like you that will let us shirk and be patient over it. We got the book and I did think I wrote a line thanking you for it-but I suppose I neglected it.
We are getting along tolerably well. Mother [Mrs. Langdon] is here, and Miss Emma Nye. Livy cannot sleep since her fathers death but I give her a narcotic every night and make her. I am just as busy as I can be am still writing for the Galaxy and also writing a book like the Innocents in size and style. I have got my work ciphered down to days, and I havent a single day to spare between this and the date which, by written contract I am to deliver the M.S. of the book to the publisher.
In a hurry,
Affectionately,
Sam.
*****
To Orion Clemens, in St, Louis:
BUF. Sept. 9th, 1870.
My dear Bro, O here! I dont want to be consulted at all about Tenn. I dont want it even mentioned to me. When I make a suggestion it is for you to act upon it or throw it aside, but I beseech you never to ask my advice, opinion or consent about that hated property. If it was because I felt the slightest personal interest in the infernal land that I ever made a suggestion, the suggestion would never be made.
Do exactly as you please with the land always remember this that so trivial a percentage as ten per cent will never sell it.
It is only a bid for a somnambulist.
I have no time to turn round, a young lady visitor (schoolmate of Livys) is dying in the house of typhoid fever (parents are in South Carolina) and the premises are full of nurses and doctors and we are all fagged out.
Yrs.
Sam.
Miss Nye, who had come to cheer her old schoolmate, had been prostrated with the deadly fever soon after her arrival. Another period of anxiety and nursing followed. Mrs. Clemens, in spite of her frail health, devoted much time to her dying friend, until by the time the end came she was herself in a precarious condition. This was at the end of September. A little more than a month later, November 7th, her first child, Langdon Clemens, was prematurely born. To the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, of Hartford, Mark Twain characteristically announced the new arrival.
*****
To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, in Hartford, Conn.:
Buffalo, Nov 12, 70.
Dear uncle and aunt, I came into the world on the 7th inst., and consequently am about five days old, now. I have had wretched health ever since I made my appearance. First one thing and then another has kept me under the weather, and as a general thing I have been chilly and uncomfortable.
I am not corpulent, nor am I robust in any way. At birth I only weighed 4 1/2 pounds with my clothes on and the clothes were the chief feature of the weight, too, I am obliged to confess. But I am doing finely, all things considered. I was at a standstill for 3 days and a half, but during the last 24 hours I have gained nearly an ounce, avoirdupois.
They all say I look very old and venerable and I am aware, myself, that I never smile. Life seems a serious thing, what I have seen of it and my observation teaches me that it is made up mainly of hiccups, unnecessary washings, and colic. But no doubt you, who are old, have long since grown accustomed and reconciled to what seems to me such a disagreeable novelty.
My father said, this morning, when my face was in repose and thoughtful, that I looked precisely as young Edward Twichell of Hartford used to look some is months ago chin, mouth, forehead, expression everything.
My little mother is very bright and cheery, and I guess she is pretty happy, but I dont know what about. She laughs a great deal, notwithstanding she is sick abed. And she eats a great deal, though she says that is because the nurse desires it. And when she has had all the nurse desires her to have, she asks for more. She is getting along very well indeed.
My aunt Susie Crane has been here some ten days or two weeks, but goes home today, and Granny Fairbanks of Cleveland arrives to take her place[14].
Very lovingly,
Langdon Clemens.
P. S. Father said I had better write because you would be more interested in me, just now, than in the rest of the family.
Clemens had made the acquaintance of the Rev. Joseph Hopkins Twichell and his wife during his several sojourns in Hartford, in connection with his book publication, and the two men had immediately become firm friends. Twichell had come to Elmira in February to the wedding to assist Rev. Thos. K. Beecher in the marriage ceremony. Joseph Twichell was a devout Christian, while Mark Twain was a doubter, even a scoffer, where orthodoxy was concerned, yet the sincerity and humanity of the two men drew them together; their friendship was lifelong.
A second letter to Twichell, something more than a month later, shows a somewhat improved condition in the Clemens household.
*****
To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford:
BUF. Dec. 19th, 1870.
Dear J. H., All is well with us, I believe though for some days the baby was quite ill. We consider him nearly restored to health now, however. Ask my brother about us you will find him at Blisss publishing office, where he is gone to edit Blisss new paper left here last Monday. Make his and his wifes acquaintance. Take Mrs. T. to see them as soon as they are fixed.
Livy is up, and the prince keeps her busy and anxious these latter days and nights, but I am a bachelor up stairs and dont have to jump up and get the soothing syrup though I would as soon do it as not, I assure you. (Livy will be certain to read this letter.)
Tell Harmony (Mrs. T.) that I do hold the baby, and do it pretty handily, too, although with occasional apprehensions that his loose head will fall off. I dont have to quiet him he hardly ever utters a cry. He is always thinking about something. He is a patient, good little baby.