Chapter XIX: Part 19

Mention has been made already of Mark Twain's tendency to
absentmindedness. He was always forgetting engagements, or getting
them wrong. Once he hurried to an afternoon party, and finding the
mistress of the house alone, sat down and talked to her comfortably
for an hour or two, not remembering his errand at all. It was only
when he reached home that he learned that the party had taken place
the week before. It was always dangerous for him to make
engagements, and he never seemed to profit by sorrowful experience.
We, however, may profit now by one of his amusing apologies.

*****

To Mrs. Grover Cleveland, in Washington:

HARTFORD, Nov. 6, 1887.

MY DEAR MADAM,--I do not know how it is in the White House, but in this house of ours whenever the minor half of the administration tries to run itself without the help of the major half it gets aground. Last night when I was offered the opportunity to assist you in the throwing open the Warner brothers superb benefaction in Bridgeport to those fortunate women, I naturally appreciated the honor done me, and promptly seized my chance. I had an engagement, but the circumstances washed it out of my mind. If I had only laid the matter before the major half of the administration on the spot, there would have been no blunder; but I never thought of that. So when I did lay it before her, later, I realized once more that it will not do for the literary fraction of a combination to try to manage affairs which properly belong in the office of the business bulk of it. I suppose the President often acts just like that: goes and makes an impossible promise, and you never find it out until it is next to impossible to break it up and set things straight again. Well, that is just our way, exactly-one half of the administration always busy getting the family into trouble, and the other half busy getting it out again. And so we do seem to be all pretty much alike, after all. The fact is, I had forgotten that we were to have a dinner party on that Bridgeport date--I thought it was the next day: which is a good deal of an improvement for me, because I am more used to being behind a day or two than ahead. But that is just the difference between one end of this kind of an administration and the other end of it, as you have noticed, yourself--the other end does not forget these things. Just so with a funeral; if it is the man's funeral, he is most always there, of course--but that is no credit to him, he wouldn't be there if you depended on him to remember about it; whereas, if on the other hand--but I seem to have got off from my line of argument somehow; never mind about the funeral. Of course I am not meaning to say anything against funerals--that is, as occasions--mere occasions--for as diversions I don't think they amount to much But as I was saying--if you are not busy I will look back and see what it was I was saying.

I don't seem to find the place; but anyway she was as sorry as ever anybody could be that I could not go to Bridgeport, but there was no help for it. And I, I have been not only sorry but very sincerely ashamed of having made an engagement to go without first making sure that I could keep it, and I do not know how to apologize enough for my heedless breach of good manners.

With the sincerest respect,
S. L. CLEMENS.

Samuel Clemens was one of the very few authors to copyright a book
in England before the enactment of the international copyright law.
As early as 1872 he copyrighted 'Roughing It' in England, and
piratical publishers there respected his rights. Finally, in 1887,
the inland revenue office assessed him with income tax, which he
very willingly paid, instructing his London publishers, Chatto &
Windus, to pay on the full amount he had received from them. But
when the receipt for his taxes came it was nearly a yard square with
due postage of considerable amount. Then he wrote:

*****

To Mr. Chatto, of Chatto & Windus, in London:

HARTFORD, Dec. 5, '87.

MY DEAR CHATTO,--Look here, I don't mind paying the tax, but don't you let the Inland Revenue Office send me any more receipts for it, for the postage is something perfectly demoralizing. If they feel obliged to print a receipt on a horse-blanket, why don't they hire a ship and send it over at their own expense?

Wasn't it good that they caught me out with an old book instead of a new one? The tax on a new book would bankrupt a body. It was my purpose to go to England next May and stay the rest of the year, but I've found that tax office out just in time. My new book would issue in March, and they would tax the sale in both countries. Come, we must get up a compromise somehow. You go and work in on the good side of those revenue people and get them to take the profits and give me the tax. Then I will come over and we will divide the swag and have a good time.

I wish you to thank Mr. Christmas for me; but we won't resist. The country that allows me copyright has a right to tax me.

Sincerely Yours
S. L. CLEMENS.

Another English tax assessment came that year, based on the report
that it was understood that he was going to become an English
resident, and had leased Buckenham Hall, Norwich, for a year.
Clemens wrote his publishers: “I will explain that all that about
Buckenham Hall was an English newspaper's mistake. I was not in
England, and if I had been I wouldn't have been at Buckenham Hall,
anyway, but at Buckingham Palace, or I would have endeavored to find
out the reason why.” Clemens made literature out of this tax
experience. He wrote an open letter to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
Such a letter has no place in this collection. It was published in
the “Drawer” of Harper's Magazine, December, 1887, and is now
included in the uniform edition of his works under the title of,
“A Petition to the Queen of England.”

From the following letter, written at the end of the year, we gather
that the type-setter costs were beginning to make a difference in
the Clemens economies.

*****

To Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia:

HARTFORD, Dec. 18, '87.

DEAR PAMELA,--will you take this $15 and buy some candy or some other trifle for yourself and Sam and his wife to remember that we remember you, by?

If we weren't a little crowded this year by the typesetter, I'd send a check large enough to buy a family Bible or some other useful thing like that. However we go on and on, but the type-setter goes on forever--at $3,000 a month; which is much more satisfactory than was the case the first seventeen months, when the bill only averaged $2,000, and promised to take a thousand years. We'll be through, now, in 3 or 4 months, I reckon, and then the strain will let up and we can breathe freely once more, whether success ensues or failure.

Even with a type-setter on hand we ought not to be in the least scrimped--but it would take a long letter to explain why and who is to blame.

All the family send love to all of you and best Christmas wishes for your prosperity.

Affectionately,
SAM.

XXVIII. LETTERS,1888. A YALE DEGREE. WORK ON “THE YANKEE.” ON INTERVIEWING, ETC.

Mark Twain received his first college degree when he was made Master
of Arts by Yale, in June, 1888. Editor of the Courant, Charles H.
Clarke, was selected to notify him of his new title. Clarke was an
old friend to whom Clemens could write familiarly.

*****

To Charles H. Clarke, in Hartford:

ELMIRA, July 2, '88.

MY DEAR CHARLES,--Thanks for your thanks, and for your initiation intentions. I shall be ready for you. I feel mighty proud of that degree; in fact, I could squeeze the truth a little closer and say vain of it. And why shouldn't I be?--I am the only literary animal of my particular subspecies who has ever been given a degree by any College in any age of the world, as far as I know.

Sincerely Yours
S. L. Clemens M. A.

Reply: Charles H. Clarke to S. L Clemens:

MY DEAR FRIEND, You are “the only literary animal of your particular subspecies” in existence and you've no cause for humility in the fact. Yale has done herself at least as much credit as she has done you, and “Don't you forget it.”

C. H. C.

With the exception of his brief return to the river in 1882. Mark
Twain had been twenty-seven years away from pilots and piloting.
Nevertheless, he always kept a tender place in his heart for the old
times and for old river comrades. Major “Jack” Downing had been a
Mississippi pilot of early days, but had long since retired from the
river to a comfortable life ashore, in an Ohio town. Clemens had
not heard from him for years when a letter came which invited the
following answer.

*****

To Major “Jack” Downing, in Middleport Ohio:

ELMIRA, N. Y.[no month] 1888.

DEAR MAJOR,--And has it come to this that the dead rise up and speak? For I supposed that you were dead, it has been so long since I heard your name.

And how young you've grown! I was a mere boy when I knew you on the river, where you had been piloting for 35 years, and now you are only a year and a half older than I am! I mean to go to Hot Springs myself and get 30 or 40 years knocked off my age. It's manifestly the place that Ponce de Leon was striking for, but the poor fellow lost the trail.

Possibly I may see you, for I shall be in St. Louis a day or two in November. I propose to go down the river and “note the changes” once more before I make the long crossing, and perhaps you can come there. Will you? I want to see all the boys that are left alive.

And so Grant Marsh, too, is flourishing yet? A mighty good fellow, and smart too. When we were taking that wood flat down to the Chambers, which was aground, I soon saw that I was a perfect lubber at piloting such a thing. I saw that I could never hit the Chambers with it, so I resigned in Marsh's favor, and he accomplished the task to my admiration. We should all have gone to the mischief if I had remained in authority. I always had good judgement, more judgement than talent, in fact.

No; the nom de plume did not originate in that way. Capt. Sellers used the signature, “Mark Twain,” himself, when he used to write up the antiquities in the way of river reminiscences for the New Orleans Picayune. He hated me for burlesquing them in an article in the True Delta; so four years later when he died, I robbed the corpse--that is I confiscated the nom de plume. I have published this vital fact 3,000 times now. But no matter, it is good practice; it is about the only fact that I can tell the same way every time. Very glad, indeed, to hear from you Major, and shall be gladder still to see you in November.

Truly yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

He did not make the journey down the river planned for that year.
He had always hoped to make another steamboat trip with Bixby, but
one thing and another interfered and he did not go again.

Authors were always sending their books to Mark Twain to read, and
no busy man was ever more kindly disposed toward such offerings,
more generously considerate of the senders. Louis Pendleton was a
young unknown writer in 1888, but Clemens took time to read his
story carefully, and to write to him about it a letter that cost
precious time, thought, and effort. It must have rejoiced the young
man's heart to receive a letter like that, from one whom all young
authors held supreme.

*****

To Louis Pendleton, in Georgia:

ELMIRA, N. Y., Aug. 4, '88.

MY DEAR SIR,--I found your letter an hour ago among some others which had lain forgotten a couple of weeks, and I at once stole time enough to read Ariadne. Stole is the right word, for the summer “Vacation” is the only chance I get for work; so, no minute subtracted from work is borrowed, it is stolen. But this time I do not repent. As a rule, people don't send me books which I can thank them for, and so I say nothing--which looks uncourteous. But I thank you. Ariadne is a beautiful and satisfying story; and true, too--which is the best part of a story; or indeed of any other thing. Even liars have to admit that, if they are intelligent liars; I mean in their private [the word conscientious written but erased] intervals. (I struck that word out because a man's private thought can never be a lie; what he thinks, is to him the truth, always; what he speaks--but these be platitudes.)

If you want me to pick some flaws--very well--but I do it unwillingly. I notice one thing--which one may notice also in my books, and in all books whether written by man or God: trifling carelessness of statement or Expression. If I think that you meant that she took the lizard from the water which she had drawn from the well, it is evidence--it is almost proof--that your words were not as clear as they should have been. True, it is only a trifling thing; but so is mist on a mirror. I would have hung the pail on Ariadne's arm. You did not deceive me when you said that she carried it under her arm, for I knew she didn't; still it was not your right to mar my enjoyment of the graceful picture. If the pail had been a portfolio, I wouldn't be making these remarks. The engraver of a fine picture revises, and revises, and revises--and then revises, and revises, and revises; and then repeats. And always the charm of that picture grows, under his hand. It was good enough before--told its story, and was beautiful. True: and a lovely girl is lovely, with freckles; but she isn't at her level best with them.

This is not hypercriticism; you have had training enough to know that.

So much concerning exactness of statement. In that other not-small matter--selection of the exact single word--you are hard to catch. Still, I should hold that Mrs. Walker considered that there was no occasion for concealment; that “motive” implied a deeper mental search than she expended on the matter; that it doesn't reflect the attitude of her mind with precision. Is this hypercriticism? I shan't dispute it. I only say, that if Mrs. Walker didn't go so far as to have a motive, I had to suggest that when a word is so near the right one that a body can't quite tell whether it is or isn't, it's good politics to strike it out and go for the Thesaurus. That's all. Motive may stand; but you have allowed a snake to scream, and I will not concede that that was the best word.

I do not apologize for saying these things, for they are not said in the speck-hunting spirit, but in the spirit of want-to-help-if-I-can. They would be useful to me if said to me once a month, they may be useful to you, said once.

I save the other stories for my real vacation--which is nine months long, to my sorrow. I thank you again.

Truly Yours
S. L. CLEMENS.

In the next letter we get a sidelight on the type-setting machine,
the Frankenstein monster that was draining their substance and
holding out false hopes of relief and golden return. The program
here outlined was one that would continue for several years yet,
with the end always in sight, but never quite attained.

*****

To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Ia.:

Oct. 3, '88.

Private.

Saturday 29th, by a closely calculated estimate, there were 85 days' work to do on the machine.

We can use 4 men, but not constantly. If they could work constantly it would complete the machine in 21 days, of course. They will all be on hand and under wages, and each will get in all the work there is opportunity for, but by how much they can reduce the 85 days toward the 21 days, nobody can tell.

*****

To-day I pay Pratt & Whitney $10,000. This squares back indebtedness and everything to date. They began about May or April or March 1886--along there somewhere, and have always kept from a dozen to two dozen master-hands on the machine.

That outgo is done; 4 men for a month or two will close up that leak and caulk it. Work on the patents is also kind of drawing toward a conclusion.

Love to you both. All well here.

And give our love to Ma if she can get the idea.

SAM.

Mark Twain that year was working pretty steadily on 'The Yankee at
King Arthur's Court', a book which he had begun two years before.
He had published nothing since the Huck Finn story, and his company
was badly in need of a new book by an author of distinction. Also
it was highly desirable to earn money for himself; wherefore he set
to work to finish the Yankee story. He had worked pretty steadily
that summer in his Elmira study, but on his return to Hartford found
a good deal of confusion in the house, so went over to Twichell's,
where carpenter work was in progress. He seems to have worked there
successfully, though what improvement of conditions he found in that
numerous, lively household, over those at home it would be difficult
to say.

*****

To Theodore W. Crane, at Quarry Farm, Elmira, N. Y.

Friday, Oct.,5, '88.

DEAR THEO,--I am here in Twichell's house at work, with the noise of the children and an army of carpenters to help. Of course they don't help, but neither do they hinder. It's like a boiler-factory for racket, and in nailing a wooden ceiling onto the room under me the hammering tickles my feet amazingly sometimes, and jars my table a good deal; but I never am conscious of the racket at all, and I move my feet into position of relief without knowing when I do it. I began here Monday morning, and have done eighty pages since. I was so tired last night that I thought I would lie abed and rest, to-day; but I couldn't resist. I mean to try to knock off tomorrow, but it's doubtful if I do. I want to finish the day the machine finishes, and a week ago the closest calculations for that indicated Oct. 22--but experience teaches me that their calculations will miss fire, as usual.

The other day the children were projecting a purchase, Livy and I to furnish the money--a dollar and a half. Jean discouraged the idea. She said: “We haven't got any money. Children, if you would think, you would remember the machine isn't done.”

It's billiards to-night. I wish you were here.

With love to you both
S. L. C.

P. S. I got it all wrong. It wasn't the children, it was Marie. She wanted a box of blacking, for the children's shoes. Jean reproved her--and said:

“Why, Marie, you mustn't ask for things now. The machine isn't done.”

S. L. C.

The letter that follows is to another of his old pilot friends, one
who was also a schoolmate, Will Bowen, of Hannibal. There is today
no means of knowing the occasion upon which this letter was written,
but it does not matter; it is the letter itself that is of chief
value.

*****

To Will Bowen, in Hannibal, Mo.:

HARTFORD, Nov 4, '88.

DEAR WILL,--I received your letter yesterday evening, just as I was starting out of town to attend a wedding, and so my mind was privately busy, all the evening, in the midst of the maelstrom of chat and chaff and laughter, with the sort of reflections which create themselves, examine themselves, and continue themselves, unaffected by surroundings--unaffected, that is understood, by the surroundings, but not uninfluenced by them. Here was the near presence of the two supreme events of life: marriage, which is the beginning of life, and death which is the end of it. I found myself seeking chances to shirk into corners where I might think, undisturbed; and the most I got out of my thought, was this: both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it. A long procession of people filed through my mind--people whom you and I knew so many years ago--so many centuries ago, it seems like-and these ancient dead marched to the soft marriage music of a band concealed in some remote room of the house; and the contented music and the dreaming shades seemed in right accord with each other, and fitting. Nobody else knew that a procession of the dead was passing though this noisy swarm of the living, but there it was, and to me there was nothing uncanny about it; Rio, they were welcome faces to me. I would have liked to bring up every creature we knew in those days--even the dumb animals--it would be bathing in the fabled Fountain of Youth.

We all feel your deep trouble with you; and we would hope, if we might, but your words deny us that privilege. To die one's self is a thing that must be easy, and of light consequence, but to lose a part of one's self--well, we know how deep that pang goes, we who have suffered that disaster, received that wound which cannot heal.

Sincerely your friend
S. L. CLEMENS.

His next is of quite a different nature. Evidently the typesetting
conditions had alarmed Orion, and he was undertaking some economies
with a view of retrenchment. Orion was always reducing economy to
science. Once, at an earlier date, he recorded that he had figured
his personal living expenses down to sixty cents a week, but
inasmuch as he was then, by his own confession, unable to earn the
sixty cents, this particular economy was wasted. Orion was a trial,
certainly, and the explosion that follows was not without excuse.
Furthermore, it was not as bad as it sounds. Mark Twain's rages
always had an element of humor in them, a fact which no one more
than Orion himself would appreciate. He preserved this letter,
quietly noting on the envelope, “Letter from Sam, about ma's nurse.”

Letter to Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:

NOV. 29, '88.

Jesus Christ!--It is perilous to write such a man. You can go crazy on less material than anybody that ever lived. What in hell has produced all these maniacal imaginings? You told me you had hired an attendant for ma. Now hire one instantly, and stop this nonsense of wearing Mollie and yourself out trying to do that nursing yourselves. Hire the attendant, and tell me her cost so that I can instruct Webster & Co. to add it every month to what they already send. Don't fool away any more time about this. And don't write me any more damned rot about “storms,” and inability to pay trivial sums of money and--and--hell and damnation! You see I've read only the first page of your letter; I wouldn't read the rest for a million dollars.

Yr
SAM.

P. S. Don't imagine that I have lost my temper, because I swear. I swear all day, but I do not lose my temper. And don't imagine that I am on my way to the poorhouse, for I am not; or that I am uneasy, for I am not; or that I am uncomfortable or unhappy--for I never am. I don't know what it is to be unhappy or uneasy; and I am not going to try to learn how, at this late day.

SAM.

Few men were ever interviewed oftener than Mark Twain, yet he never
welcomed interviewers and was seldom satisfied with them. “What I
say in an interview loses it character in print,” he often remarked,
“all its life and personality. The reporter realizes this himself,
and tries to improve upon me, but he doesn't help matters any.”

Edward W. Bok, before he became editor of the Ladies Home Journal,
was conducting a weekly syndicate column under the title of “Bok's
Literary Leaves.” It usually consisted of news and gossip of
writers, comment, etc., literary odds and ends, and occasional
interviews with distinguished authors. He went up to Hartford one
day to interview Mark Twain. The result seemed satisfactory to Bok,
but wishing to be certain that it would be satisfactory to Clemens,
he sent him a copy for approval. The interview was not returned;
in the place of it came a letter-not altogether disappointing, as
the reader may believe.

*****

To Edward W. Bok, in New York:

MY DEAR MR. BOK,--No, no. It is like most interviews, pure twaddle and valueless.

For several quite plain and simple reasons, an “interview” must, as a rule, be an absurdity, and chiefly for this reason--It is an attempt to use a boat on land or a wagon on water, to speak figuratively. Spoken speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is the proper vehicle for the latter, but it isn't for the former. The moment “talk” is put into print you recognize that it is not what it was when you heard it; you perceive that an immense something has disappeared from it. That is its soul. You have nothing but a dead carcass left on your hands. Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of the voice, the laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that body warmth, grace, friendliness and charm and commended it to your affections--or, at least, to your tolerance--is gone and nothing is left but a pallid, stiff and repulsive cadaver.

Such is “talk” almost invariably, as you see it lying in state in an “interview”. The interviewer seldom tries to tell one how a thing was said; he merely puts in the naked remark and stops there. When one writes for print his methods are very different. He follows forms which have but little resemblance to conversation, but they make the reader understand what the writer is trying to convey. And when the writer is making a story and finds it necessary to report some of the talk of his characters observe how cautiously and anxiously he goes at that risky and difficult thing. “If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,” said Alfred, “taking a mock heroic attitude, and casting an arch glance upon the company, blood would have flowed.”

“If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,” said Hawkwood, with that in his eye which caused more than one heart in that guilty assemblage to quake, “blood would have flowed.”

“If he had dared to say that thing in my presence,” said the paltry blusterer, with valor on his tongue and pallor on his lips, “blood would have flowed.”

So painfully aware is the novelist that naked talk in print conveys no meaning that he loads, and often overloads, almost every utterance of his characters with explanations and interpretations. It is a loud confession that print is a poor vehicle for “talk”; it is a recognition that uninterpreted talk in print would result in confusion to the reader, not instruction.

Now, in your interview, you have certainly been most accurate; you have set down the sentences I uttered as I said them. But you have not a word of explanation; what my manner was at several points is not indicated. Therefore, no reader can possibly know where I was in earnest and where I was joking; or whether I was joking altogether or in earnest altogether. Such a report of a conversation has no value. It can convey many meanings to the reader, but never the right one. To add interpretations which would convey the right meaning is a something which would require--what? An art so high and fine and difficult that no possessor of it would ever be allowed to waste it on interviews.

No; spare the reader, and spare me; leave the whole interview out; it is rubbish. I wouldn't talk in my sleep if I couldn't talk better than that.

If you wish to print anything print this letter; it may have some value, for it may explain to a reader here and there why it is that in interviews, as a rule, men seem to talk like anybody but themselves.

Very sincerely yours,
MARK TWAIN.

XXIX. LETTERS, 1889. THE MACHINE. DEATH OF MR. CRANE. CONCLUSION OF THE YANKEE.

In January, 1889, Clemens believed, after his long seven years of waiting, fruition had come in the matter of the type machine. Paige, the inventor, seemed at last to have given it its finishing touches. The mechanical marvel that had cost so much time, mental stress, and a fortune in money, stood complete, responsive to the human will and touch--the latest, and one of the greatest, wonders of the world. To George Standring, a London printer and publisher, Clemens wrote: “The machine is finished!” and added, “This is by far the most marvelous invention ever contrived by man. And it is not a thing of rags and patches; it is made of massive steel, and will last a century.”

In his fever of enthusiasm on that day when he had actually seen it in operation, he wrote a number of exuberant letters. They were more or less duplicates, but as the one to his brother is of fuller detail and more intimate than the others, it has been selected for preservation here.

*****

To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk:

HARTFORD, Jan. 5, '89.

DEAR ORION,--At 12.20 this afternoon a line of movable types was spaced and justified by machinery, for the first time in the history of the world! And I was there to see. It was done automatically--instantly--perfectly. This is indeed the first line of movable types that ever was perfectly spaced and perfectly justified on this earth.

This was the last function that remained to be tested--and so by long odds the most amazing and extraordinary invention ever born of the brain of man stands completed and perfect. Livy is down stairs celebrating.

But it's a cunning devil, is that machine!--and knows more than any man that ever lived. You shall see. We made the test in this way. We set up a lot of random letters in a stick--three-fourths of a line; then filled out the line with quads representing 14 spaces, each space to be 35/1000 of an inch thick. Then we threw aside the quads and put the letters into the machine and formed them into 15 two-letter words, leaving the words separated by two-inch vacancies. Then we started up the machine slowly, by hand, and fastened our eyes on the space-selecting pins. The first pin-block projected its third pin as the first word came traveling along the race-way; second block did the same; but the third block projected its second pin!

“Oh, hell! stop the machine--something wrong--it's going to set a 30/1000 space!”

General consternation. “A foreign substance has got into the spacing plates.” This from the head mathematician.

“Yes, that is the trouble,” assented the foreman.

Paige examined. “No--look in, and you can see that there's nothing of the kind.” Further examination. “Now I know what it is--what it must be: one of those plates projects and binds. It's too bad--the first test is a failure.” A pause. “Well, boys, no use to cry. Get to work--take the machine down.--No--Hold on! don't touch a thing! Go right ahead! We are fools, the machine isn't. The machine knows what it's about. There is a speck of dirt on one of those types, and the machine is putting in a thinner space to allow for it!”

That was just it. The machine went right ahead, spaced the line, justified it to a hair, and shoved it into the galley complete and perfect! We took it out and examined it with a glass. You could not tell by your eye that the third space was thinner than the others, but the glass and the calipers showed the difference. Paige had always said that the machine would measure invisible particles of dirt and allow for them, but even he had forgotten that vast fact for the moment.

All the witnesses made written record of the immense historical birth--the first justification of a line of movable type by machinery--and also set down the hour and the minute. Nobody had drank anything, and yet everybody seemed drunk. Well-dizzy, stupefied, stunned.

All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty nearly into commonplace contrasted with this awful mechanical miracle. Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton gins, sewing machines, Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, Arkwright's frames--all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone and far in the lead of human inventions.

In two or three weeks we shall work the stiffness out of her joints and have her performing as smoothly and softly as human muscles, and then we shall speak out the big secret and let the world come and gaze.

Return me this letter when you have read it.

SAM.

Judge of the elation which such a letter would produce in Keokuk!
Yet it was no greater than that which existed in Hartford--for a
time.

Then further delays. Before the machine got “the stiffness out of
her joints” that “cunning devil” manifested a tendency to break the
types, and Paige, who was never happier than when he was pulling
things to pieces and making improvements, had the type-setter apart
again and the day of complete triumph was postponed.

There was sadness at the Elmira farm that spring. Theodore Crane,
who had long been in poor health, seemed to grow daily worse. In
February he had paid a visit to Hartford and saw the machine in
operation, but by the end of May his condition was very serious.
Remembering his keen sense of humor, Clemens reported to him
cheering and amusing incidents.

*****

To Mrs. Theodore Crane. in Elmira, N. Y.:

HARTFORD, May 28, '89.

Susie dear, I want you to tell this to Theodore. You know how absent-minded Twichell is, and how desolate his face is when he is in that frame. At such times, he passes the word with a friend on the street and is not aware of the meeting at all. Twice in a week, our Clara had this latter experience with him within the past month. But the second instance was too much for her, and she woke him up, in his tracks, with a reproach. She said:

“Uncle Joe, why do you always look as if you were just going down into the grave, when you meet a person on the street?”--and then went on to reveal to him the funereal spectacle which he presented on such occasions. Well, she has met Twichell three times since then, and would swim the Connecticut to avoid meeting him the fourth. As soon as he sights her, no matter how public the place nor how far off she is, he makes a bound into the air, heaves arms and legs into all sorts of frantic gestures of delight, and so comes prancing, skipping and pirouetting for her like a drunken Indian entering heaven.

With a full invoice of love from us all to you and Theodore.

S. L. C.

The reference in the next to the “closing sentence” in a letter
written by Howells to Clemens about this time, refers to a
heart-broken utterance of the former concerning his daughter
Winnie, who had died some time before. She had been a gentle
talented girl, but never of robust health. Her death had followed
a long period of gradual decline.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Judy 13, '89.

DEAR HOWELLS,--I came on from Elmira a day or two ago, where I left a house of mourning. Mr. Crane died, after ten months of pain and two whole days of dying, at the farm on the hill, the 3rd inst: A man who had always hoped for a swift death. Mrs. Crane and Mrs. Clemens and the children were in a gloom which brought back to me the days of nineteen years ago, when Mr. Langdon died. It is heart-breaking to see Mrs. Crane. Many a time, in the past ten days, the sight of her has reminded me, with a pang, of the desolation which uttered itself in the closing sentence of your last letter to me. I do see that there is an argument against suicide: the grief of the worshipers left behind; the awful famine in their hearts, these are too costly terms for the release.

I shall be here ten days yet, and all alone: nobody in the house but the servants. Can't Mrs. Howells spare you to me? Can't you come and stay with me? The house is cool and pleasant; your work will not be interrupted; we will keep to ourselves and let the rest of the world do the same; you can have your choice of three bedrooms, and you will find the Children's schoolroom (which was built for my study,) the perfection of a retired and silent den for work. There isn't a fly or a mosquito on the estate. Come--say you will.

With kindest regards to Mrs. Howells, and Pilla and John,

Yours Ever
MARK.

Howells was more hopeful. He wrote: “I read something in a strange book, The Physical Theory of Another Life, that consoles a little; namely, we see and feel the power of Deity in such fullness that we ought to infer the infinite justice and Goodness which we do not see or feel.” And a few days later, he wrote: “I would rather see and talk with you than any other man in the world outside my own blood.”

A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court was brought to an end that year and given to the artist and printer. Dan Beard was selected for the drawings, and was given a free hand, as the next letter shows.

*****

To Fred J. Hall, Manager Charles L. Webster & Co.:

[Charles L. Webster, owing to poor health, had by this time retired from the firm.]

ELMIRA, July 20, '89.

DEAR MR. HALL,--Upon reflection--thus: tell Beard to obey his own inspiration, and when he sees a picture in his mind put that picture on paper, be it humorous or be it serious. I want his genius to be wholly unhampered, I shan't have fears as to the result. They will be better pictures than if I mixed in and tried to give him points on his own trade.

Send this note and he'll understand.

Yr
S. L. C.

Clemens had made a good choice in selecting Beard for the
illustrations. He was well qualified for the work, and being of a
socialistic turn of mind put his whole soul into it. When the
drawings were completed, Clemens wrote: “Hold me under permanent
obligations. What luck it was to find you! There are hundreds of
artists that could illustrate any other book of mine, but there was
only one who could illustrate this one. Yes, it was a fortunate
hour that I went netting for lightning bugs and caught a meteor.
Live forever!”

Clemens, of course, was anxious for Howells to read The Yankee, and
Mrs. Clemens particularly so. Her eyes were giving her trouble that
summer, so that she could not read the MS. for herself, and she had
grave doubts as to some of its chapters. It may be said here that
the book to-day might have been better if Mrs. Clemens had been able
to read it. Howells was a peerless critic, but the revolutionary
subject-matter of the book so delighted him that he was perhaps
somewhat blinded to its literary defects. However, this is
premature. Howells did not at once see the story. He had promised
to come to Hartford, but wrote that trivial matters had made his
visit impossible. From the next letter we get the situation at this
time. The “Mr. Church” mentioned was Frederick S. Church, the
well-known artist.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, July 24, '89.

DEAR HOWELLS,--I, too, was as sorry as I could be; yes, and desperately disappointed. I even did a heroic thing: shipped my book off to New York lest I should forget hospitality and embitter your visit with it. Not that I think you wouldn't like to read it, for I think you would; but not on a holiday that's not the time. I see how you were situated--another familiarity of Providence and wholly wanton intrusion--and of course we could not help ourselves. Well, just think of it: a while ago, while Providence's attention was absorbed in disordering some time-tables so as to break up a trip of mine to Mr. Church's on the Hudson, that Johnstown dam got loose. I swear I was afraid to pray, for fear I should laugh. Well, I'm not going to despair; we'll manage a meet yet.

I expect to go to Hartford again in August and maybe remain till I have to come back here and fetch the family. And, along there in August, some time, you let on that you are going to Mexico, and I will let on that I am going to Spitzbergen, and then under cover of this clever stratagem we will glide from the trains at Worcester and have a time. I have noticed that Providence is indifferent about Mexico and Spitzbergen.

Ys Ever
MARK.

Possibly Mark Twain was not particularly anxious that Howells should
see his MS., fearing that he might lay a ruthless hand on some of
his more violent fulminations and wild fancies. However this may
be, further postponement was soon at an end. Mrs. Clemens's eyes
troubled her and would not permit her to read, so she requested that
the Yankee be passed upon by soberminded critics, such as Howells
and Edmund Clarence Stedman. Howells wrote that even if he hadn't
wanted to read the book for its own sake, or for the author's sake,
he would still want to do it for Mrs. Clemens's. Whereupon the
proofs were started in his direction.

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

ELMIRA, Aug. 24, '89.

DEAR HOWELLS,--If you should be moved to speak of my book in the Study, I shall be glad and proud--and the sooner it gets in, the better for the book; though I don't suppose you can get it in earlier than the November number--why, no, you can't get it in till a month later than that. Well, anyway I don't think I'll send out any other press copy--except perhaps to Stedman. I'm not writing for those parties who miscall themselves critics, and I don't care to have them paw the book at all. It's my swan-song, my retirement from literature permanently, and I wish to pass to the cemetery unclodded.

I judge that the proofs have begun to reach you about this time, as I had some (though not revises,) this morning. I'm sure I'm going to be charmed with Beard's pictures. Observe his nice take-off of Middle-Age art-dinner-table scene.

Ys sincerely
MARK.

Howells's approval of the Yankee came almost in the form of exultant
shouts, one after reading each batch of proof. First he wrote:
“It's charming, original, wonderful! good in fancy and sound to the
core in morals.” And again, “It's a mighty great book, and it makes
my heart burn with wrath. It seems God did not forget to put a soul
into you. He shuts most literary men off with a brain, merely.”
Then, a few days later: “The book is glorious--simply noble; what
masses of virgin truth never touched in print before!” and, finally,
“Last night I read your last chapter. As Stedman says of the whole
book, it's titanic.”

*****

To W. D. Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, Sept. 22, '89.

DEAR HOWELLS,--It is immensely good of you to grind through that stuff for me; but it gives peace to Mrs. Clemens's soul; and I am as grateful to you as a body can be. I am glad you approve of what I say about the French Revolution. Few people will. It is odd that even to this day Americans still observe that immortal benefaction through English and other monarchical eyes, and have no shred of an opinion about it that they didn't get at second-hand.

Next to the 4th of July and its results, it was the noblest and the holiest thing and the most precious that ever happened in this earth. And its gracious work is not done yet--not anywhere in the remote neighborhood of it.

Don't trouble to send me all the proofs; send me the pages with your corrections on them, and waste-basket the rest. We issue the book Dec. 10; consequently a notice that appears Dec. 20 will be just in good time.

I am waiting to see your Study set a fashion in criticism. When that happens--as please God it must--consider that if you lived three centuries you couldn't do a more valuable work for this country, or a humaner.

As a rule a critic's dissent merely enrages, and so does no good; but by the new art which you use, your dissent must be as welcome as your approval, and as valuable. I do not know what the secret of it is, unless it is your attitude--man courteously reasoning with man and brother, in place of the worn and wearisome critical attitude of all this long time--superior being lecturing a boy.

Well, my book is written--let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying and multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell.

Ys Ever
MARK.

The type-setting machine began to loom large in the background.
Clemens believed it perfected by this time. Paige had got it
together again and it was running steadily--or approximately so
--setting type at a marvelous speed and with perfect accuracy. In
time an expert operator would be able to set as high as eight
thousand ems per hour, or about ten times as much as a good
compositor could set and distribute by hand. Those who saw it were
convinced--most of them--that the type-setting problem was solved by
this great mechanical miracle. If there were any who doubted, it
was because of its marvelously minute accuracy which the others only
admired. Such accuracy, it was sometimes whispered, required
absolutely perfect adjustment, and what would happen when the great
inventor--“the poet in steel,” as Clemens once called him--was no
longer at hand to supervise and to correct the slightest variation.
But no such breath of doubt came to Mark Twain; he believed the
machine as reliable as a constellation.

But now there was need of capital to manufacture and market the
wonder. Clemens, casting about in his mind, remembered Senator
Jones, of Nevada, a man of great wealth, and his old friend, Joe
Goodman, of Nevada, in whom Jones had unlimited confidence. He
wrote to Goodman, and in this letter we get a pretty full exposition
of the whole matter as it stood in the fall of 1889. We note in
this communication that Clemens says that he has been at the machine
three years and seven months, but this was only the period during
which he had spent the regular monthly sum of three thousand
dollars. His interest in the invention had begun as far back as
1880.

*****

To Joseph T. Goodman, in Nevada:

Private. HARTFORD, Oct. 7, '89.

DEAR JOE,--I had a letter from Aleck Badlam day before yesterday, and in answering him I mentioned a matter which I asked him to consider a secret except to you and John McComb,--[This is Col. McComb, of the Alta-California, who had sent Mark Twain on the Quaker City excursion]--as I am not ready yet to get into the newspapers.

I have come near writing you about this matter several times, but it wasn't ripe, and I waited. It is ripe, now. It is a type-setting machine which I undertook to build for the inventor (for a consideration). I have been at it three years and seven months without losing a day, at a cost of $3,000 a month, and in so private a way that Hartford has known nothing about it. Indeed only a dozen men have known of the matter. I have reported progress from time to time to the proprietors of the N. Y. Sun, Herald, Times, World, Harper Brothers and John F. Trow; also to the proprietors of the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe. Three years ago I asked all these people to squelch their frantic desire to load up their offices with the Mergenthaler (N. Y. Tribune) machine, and wait for mine and then choose between the two. They have waited--with no very gaudy patience--but still they have waited; and I could prove to them to-day that they have not lost anything by it. But I reserve the proof for the present--except in the case of the N. Y. Herald; I sent an invitation there the other day--a courtesy due a paper which ordered $240,000 worth of our machines long ago when it was still in a crude condition. The Herald has ordered its foreman to come up here next Thursday; but that is the only invitation which will go out for some time yet.

The machine was finished several weeks ago, and has been running ever since in the machine shop. It is a magnificent creature of steel, all of Pratt & Whitney's super-best workmanship, and as nicely adjusted and as accurate as a watch. In construction it is as elaborate and complex as that machine which it ranks next to, by every right--Man--and in performance it is as simple and sure.

Anybody can set type on it who can read--and can do it after only 15 minutes' instruction. The operator does not need to leave his seat at the keyboard; for the reason that he is not required to do anything but strike the keys and set type--merely one function; the spacing, justifying, emptying into the galley, and distributing of dead matter is all done by the machine without anybody's help--four functions.

The ease with which a cub can learn is surprising. Day before yesterday I saw our newest cub set, perfectly space and perfectly justify 2,150 ems of solid nonpareil in an hour and distribute the like amount in the same hour--and six hours previously he had never seen the machine or its keyboard. It was a good hour's work for 3-year veterans on the other type-setting machines to do. We have 3 cubs. The dean of the trio is a school youth of 18. Yesterday morning he had been an apprentice on the machine 16 working days (8-hour days); and we speeded him to see what he could do in an hour. In the hour he set 5,900 ems solid nonpareil, and the machine perfectly spaced and justified it, and of course distributed the like amount in the same hour. Considering that a good fair compositor sets 700 and distributes 700 in the one hour, this boy did the work of about 8 x a compositors in that hour. This fact sends all other type-setting machines a thousand miles to the rear, and the best of them will never be heard of again after we publicly exhibit in New York.

We shall put on 3 more cubs. We have one school boy and two compositors, now,--and we think of putting on a type writer, a stenographer, and perhaps a shoemaker, to show that no special gifts or training are required with this machine. We shall train these beginners two or three months--or until some one of them gets up to 7,000 an hour--then we will show up in New York and run the machine 24 hours a day 7 days in the week, for several months--to prove that this is a machine which will never get out of order or cause delay, and can stand anything an anvil can stand. You know there is no other typesetting machine that can run two hours on a stretch without causing trouble and delay with its incurable caprices.

We own the whole field--every inch of it--and nothing can dislodge us.