Chapter XXIV: Part 24

There would come moments of depression, of course, and a week later
he wrote: “I am tired to death all the time:” To a man of less
vitality, less vigor of mind and body, it is easy to believe that
under such circumstances this condition would have remained
permanent. But perhaps, after all, it was his comic outlook on
things in general that was his chief life-saver.

*****

To H. H. Rogers, in New York City:

169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, Apr. 29, '95.

DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I have been hidden an hour or two, reading proof of Joan and now I think I am a lost child. I can't find anybody on the place. The baggage has all disappeared, including the family. I reckon that in the hurry and bustle of moving to the hotel they forgot me. But it is no matter. It is peacefuller now than I have known it for days and days and days.

In these Joan proofs which I have been reading for the September Harper I find a couple of tip-top platform readings--and I mean to read them on our trip. If the authorship is known by then; and if it isn't, I will reveal it. The fact is, there is more good platform-stuff in Joan than in any previous book of mine, by a long sight.

Yes, every danged member of the tribe has gone to the hotel and left me lost. I wonder how they can be so careless with property. I have got to try to get there by myself now.

All the trunks are going over as luggage; then I've got to find somebody on the dock who will agree to ship 6 of them to the Hartford Customhouse. If it is difficult I will dump them into the river. It is very careless of Mrs. Clemens to trust trunks and things to me.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

By the latter part of May they were at Quarry Farm, and Clemens,
laid up there with a carbuncle, was preparing for his long tour.
The outlook was not a pleasant one. To Mr. Rogers he wrote: “I
sha'n't be able to stand on the platform before we start west. I
sha'n't get a single chance to practice my reading; but will have to
appear in Cleveland without the essential preparation. Nothing in
this world can save it from being a shabby, poor disgusting
performance. I've got to stand; I can't do it and talk to a house,
and how in the nation am I going to sit? Land of Goshen, it's this
night week! Pray for me.”

The opening at Cleveland July 15th appears not to have been much of
a success, though from another reason, one that doubtless seemed
amusing to him later.

*****

To H. H. Rogers, in New York City:

(Forenoon)
CLEVELAND, July 16, '95.

DEAR MR. ROGERS,--Had a roaring success at the Elmira reformatory Sunday night. But here, last night, I suffered defeat--There were a couple of hundred little boys behind me on the stage, on a lofty tier of benches which made them the most conspicuous objects in the house. And there was nobody to watch them or keep them quiet. Why, with their scufflings and horse-play and noise, it was just a menagerie. Besides, a concert of amateurs had been smuggled into the program (to precede me,) and their families and friends (say ten per cent of the audience) kept encoring them and they always responded. So it was 20 minutes to 9 before I got the platform in front of those 2,600 people who had paid a dollar apiece for a chance to go to hell in this fashion.

I got started magnificently, but inside of half an hour the scuffling boys had the audience's maddened attention and I saw it was a gone case; so I skipped a third of my program and quit. The newspapers are kind, but between you and me it was a defeat. There ain't going to be any more concerts at my lectures. I care nothing for this defeat, because it was not my fault. My first half hour showed that I had the house, and I could have kept it if I hadn't been so handicapped.

Yours sincerely,
S. L. CLEMENS.

P. S. Had a satisfactory time at Petoskey. Crammed the house and turned away a crowd. We had $548 in the house, which was $300 more than it had ever had in it before. I believe I don't care to have a talk go off better than that one did.

Mark Twain, on this long tour, was accompanied by his wife and his
daughter Clara--Susy and Jean Clemens remaining with their aunt at
Quarry Farm. The tour was a financial success from the start.
By the time they were ready to sail from Vancouver five thousand
dollars had been remitted to Mr. Rogers against that day of
settlement when the debts of Webster & Co. were to be paid. Perhaps
it should be stated here that a legal settlement had been arranged
on a basis of fifty cents on the dollar, but neither Clemens nor his
wife consented to this as final. They would pay in full.

They sailed from Vancouver August 23, 1895. About the only letter
of this time is an amusing note to Rudyard Kipling, written at the
moment of departure.

*****

To Rudyard Kipling, in England:

August, 1895.

DEAR KIPLING,--It is reported that you are about to visit India. This has moved me to journey to that far country in order that I may unload from my conscience a debt long due to you. Years ago you came from India to Elmira to visit me, as you said at the time. It has always been my purpose to return that visit and that great compliment some day. I shall arrive next January and you must be ready. I shall come riding my ayah with his tusks adorned with silver bells and ribbons and escorted by a troop of native howdahs richly clad and mounted upon a herd of wild bungalows; and you must be on hand with a few bottles of ghee, for I shall be thirsty.

Affectionately,
S. L. CLEMENS.

Clemens, platforming in Australia, was too busy to write letters.
Everywhere he was welcomed by great audiences, and everywhere
lavishly entertained. He was beset by other carbuncles, but would
seem not to have been seriously delayed by them. A letter to his
old friend Twichell carries the story.

*****

To Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

FRANK MOELLER'S MASONIC HOTEL,
NAPIER, NEW ZEALAND,
November 29, '95.

DEAR JOE,--Your welcome letter of two months and five days ago has just arrived, and finds me in bed with another carbuncle. It is No. 3. Not a serious one this time. I lectured last night without inconvenience, but the doctors thought best to forbid to-night's lecture. My second one kept me in bed a week in Melbourne.

... We are all glad it is you who is to write the article, it delights us all through.

I think it was a good stroke of luck that knocked me on my back here at Napier, instead of some hotel in the centre of a noisy city. Here we have the smooth and placidly-complaining sea at our door, with nothing between us and it but 20 yards of shingle--and hardly a suggestion of life in that space to mar it or make a noise. Away down here fifty-five degrees south of the Equator this sea seems to murmur in an unfamiliar tongue--a foreign tongue--tongue bred among the ice-fields of the Antarctic--a murmur with a note of melancholy in it proper to the vast unvisited solitudes it has come from. It was very delicious and solacing to wake in the night and find it still pulsing there. I wish you were here--land, but it would be fine!

Livy and Clara enjoy this nomadic life pretty well; certainly better than one could have expected they would. They have tough experiences, in the way of food and beds and frantic little ships, but they put up with the worst that befalls with heroic endurance that resembles contentment.

No doubt I shall be on the platform next Monday. A week later we shall reach Wellington; talk there 3 nights, then sail back to Australia. We sailed for New Zealand October 30.

Day before yesterday was Livy's birthday (under world time), and tomorrow will be mine. I shall be 60--no thanks for it.

I and the others send worlds and worlds of love to all you dear ones.

MARK.

The article mentioned in the foregoing letter was one which Twichell
had been engaged by Harper's Magazine to write concerning the home
life and characteristics of Mark Twain. By the time the Clemens
party had completed their tour of India--a splendid, triumphant
tour, too full of work and recreation for letter-writing--and had
reached South Africa, the article had appeared, a satisfactory one,
if we may judge by Mark Twain's next.

This letter, however, has a special interest in the account it gives
of Mark Twain's visit to the Jameson raiders, then imprisoned at
Pretoria.

*****

To Rev. Jos. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC,
The Queen's Birthday, '96.
(May 24)

DEAR OLD JOE,--Harper for May was given to me yesterday in Johannesburg by an American lady who lives there, and I read your article on me while coming up in the train with her and an old friend and fellow-Missourian of mine, Mrs. John Hays Hammond, the handsome and spirited wife of the chief of the 4 Reformers, who lies in prison here under a 15-year sentence, along with 50 minor Reformers who are in for 1 and 5-year terms. Thank you a thousand times Joe, you have praised me away above my deserts, but I am not the man to quarrel with you for that; and as for Livy, she will take your very hardiest statements at par, and be grateful to you to the bottom of her heart. Between you and Punch and Brander Matthews, I am like to have my opinion of myself raised sufficiently high; and I guess the children will be after you, for it is the study of their lives to keep my self-appreciation down somewhere within bounds.

I had a note from Mrs. Rev. Gray (nee Tyler) yesterday, and called on her to-day. She is well.

Yesterday I was allowed to enter the prison with Mrs. Hammond. A Boer guard was at my elbow all the time, but was courteous and polite, only he barred the way in the compound (quadrangle or big open court) and wouldn't let me cross a white mark that was on the ground--the “death-line” one of the prisoners called it. Not in earnest, though, I think. I found that I had met Hammond once when he was a Yale senior and a guest of Gen. Franklin's. I also found that I had known Capt. Mein intimately 32 years ago. One of the English prisoners had heard me lecture in London 23 years ago. After being introduced in turn to all the prisoners, I was allowed to see some of the cells and examine their food, beds, etc. I was told in Johannesburg that Hammond's salary of $150,000 a year is not stopped, and that the salaries of some of the others are still continued. Hammond was looking very well indeed, and I can say the same of all the others. When the trouble first fell upon them it hit some of them very hard; several fell sick (Hammond among them), two or three had to be removed to the hospital, and one of the favorites lost his mind and killed himself, poor fellow, last week. His funeral, with a sorrowing following of 10,000, took the place of the public demonstration the Americans were getting up for me.

These prisoners are strong men, prominent men, and I believe they are all educated men. They are well off; some of them are wealthy. They have a lot of books to read, they play games and smoke, and for awhile they will be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for long, not for very long, I take it. I am told they have times of deadly brooding and depression. I made them a speech--sitting down. It just happened so. I don't prefer that attitude. Still, it has one advantage--it is only a talk, it doesn't take the form of a speech. I have tried it once before on this trip. However, if a body wants to make sure of having “liberty,” and feeling at home, he had better stand up, of course. I advised them at considerable length to stay where they were--they would get used to it and like it presently; if they got out they would only get in again somewhere else, by the look of their countenances; and I promised to go and see the President and do what I could to get him to double their jail-terms.

We had a very good sociable time till the permitted time was up and a little over, and we outsiders had to go. I went again to-day, but the Rev. Mr. Gray had just arrived, and the warden, a genial, elderly Boer named Du Plessis--explained that his orders wouldn't allow him to admit saint and sinner at the same time, particularly on a Sunday. Du Plessis--descended from the Huguenot fugitives, you see, of 200 years ago--but he hasn't any French left in him now--all Dutch.

It gravels me to think what a goose I was to make Livy and Clara remain in Durban; but I wanted to save them the 30-hour railway trip to Johannesburg. And Durban and its climate and opulent foliage were so lovely, and the friends there were so choice and so hearty that I sacrificed myself in their interests, as I thought. It is just the beginning of winter, and although the days are hot, the nights are cool. But it's lovely weather in these regions, too; and the friends are as lovely as the weather, and Johannesburg and Pretoria are brimming with interest. I talk here twice more, then return to Johannesburg next Wednesday for a fifth talk there; then to the Orange Free State capital, then to some town on the way to Port Elizabeth, where the two will join us by sea from Durban; then the gang will go to Kimberley and presently to the Cape--and so, in the course of time, we shall get through and sail for England; and then we will hunt up a quiet village and I will write and Livy edit, for a few months, while Clara and Susy and Jean study music and things in London.

We have had noble good times everywhere and every day, from Cleveland, July 15, to Pretoria, May 24, and never a dull day either on sea or land, notwithstanding the carbuncles and things. Even when I was laid up 10 days at Jeypore in India we had the charmingest times with English friends. All over India the English well, you will never know how good and fine they are till you see them.

Midnight and after! and I must do many things to-day, and lecture tonight.

A world of thanks to you, Joe dear, and a world of love to all of you.

MARK.

Perhaps for readers of a later day a word as to what constituted the
Jameson raid would not be out of place here. Dr. Leander Starr
Jameson was an English physician, located at Kimberley. President
Kruger (Oom Paul), head of the South African Republic, was one of
his patients; also, Lobengula, the Matabele chief. From Lobengula
concessions were obtained which led to the formation of the South
African Company. Jameson gave up his profession and went in for
conquest, associating himself with the projects of Cecil Rhodes.
In time he became administrator of Rhodesia. By the end of 1894.
he was in high feather, and during a visit to England was feted as
a sort of romantic conqueror of the olden time. Perhaps this turned
his head; at all events at the end of 1895 came the startling news
that “Dr. Jim,” as he was called, at the head of six hundred men,
had ridden into the Transvaal in support of a Rhodes scheme for an
uprising at Johannesburg. The raid was a failure. Jameson, and
those other knights of adventure, were captured by the forces of
“Oom Paul,” and some of them barely escaped execution. The Boer
president handed them over to the English Government for punishment,
and they received varying sentences, but all were eventually
released. Jameson, later, became again prominent in South-African
politics, but there is no record of any further raids.

.........................

The Clemens party sailed from South Africa the middle of July, 1896,
and on the last day of the month reached England. They had not
planned to return to America, but to spend the winter in or near
London in some quiet place where Clemens could write the book of his
travels.

The two daughters in America, Susy and Jean, were expected to arrive
August 12th, but on that day there came, instead, a letter saying
that Susy Clemens was not well enough to sail. A cable inquiry was
immediately sent, but the reply when it came was not satisfactory,
and Mrs. Clemens and Clara sailed for America without further delay.
This was on August 15th. Three days later, in the old home at
Hartford, Susy Clemens died of cerebral fever. She had been
visiting Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner, but by the physician's advice
had been removed to the comfort and quiet of her own home, only a
few steps away.

Mark Twain, returning from his triumphant tour of the world in the
hope that soon, now, he might be free from debt, with his family
happily gathered about him, had to face alone this cruel blow.
There was no purpose in his going to America; Susy would be buried
long before his arrival. He awaited in England the return of his
broken family. They lived that winter in a quiet corner of Chelsea,
No. 23 Tedworth Square.

*****

To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell, in Hartford, Conn.:

Permanent address:
% CHATTO & WINDUS
111 T. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON,
Sept. 27, '96.

Through Livy and Katy I have learned, dear old Joe, how loyally you stood poor Susy's friend, and mine, and Livy's: how you came all the way down, twice, from your summer refuge on your merciful errands to bring the peace and comfort of your beloved presence, first to that poor child, and again to the broken heart of her poor desolate mother. It was like you; like your good great heart, like your matchless and unmatchable self. It was no surprise to me to learn that you stayed by Susy long hours, careless of fatigue and heat, it was no surprise to me to learn that you could still the storms that swept her spirit when no other could; for she loved you, revered you, trusted you, and “Uncle Joe” was no empty phrase upon her lips! I am grateful to you, Joe, grateful to the bottom of my heart, which has always been filled with love for you, and respect and admiration; and I would have chosen you out of all the world to take my place at Susy's side and Livy's in those black hours.

Susy was a rare creature; the rarest that has been reared in Hartford in this generation. And Livy knew it, and you knew it, and Charley Warner and George, and Harmony, and the Hillyers and the Dunhams and the Cheneys, and Susy and Lilly, and the Bunces, and Henry Robinson and Dick Burton, and perhaps others. And I also was of the number, but not in the same degree--for she was above my duller comprehension. I merely knew that she was my superior in fineness of mind, in the delicacy and subtlety of her intellect, but to fully measure her I was not competent. I know her better now; for I have read her private writings and sounded the deeps of her mind; and I know better, now, the treasure that was mine than I knew it when I had it. But I have this consolation: that dull as I was, I always knew enough to be proud when she commended me or my work--as proud as if Livy had done it herself--and I took it as the accolade from the hand of genius. I see now--as Livy always saw--that she had greatness in her; and that she herself was dimly conscious of it.

And now she is dead--and I can never tell her.

God bless you Joe--and all of your house.

S. L. C.

*****

To Mr. Henry C. Robinson, Hartford, Conn.:

LONDON, Sept. 28, '96.

It is as you say, dear old friend, “the pathos of it” yes, it was a piteous thing--as piteous a tragedy as any the year can furnish. When we started westward upon our long trip at half past ten at night, July 14, 1895, at Elmira, Susy stood on the platform in the blaze of the electric light waving her good-byes to us as the train glided away, her mother throwing back kisses and watching her through her tears. One year, one month, and one week later, Clara and her mother having exactly completed the circuit of the globe, drew up at that platform at the same hour of the night, in the same train and the same car--and again Susy had come a journey and was near at hand to meet them. She was waiting in the house she was born in, in her coffin.

All the circumstances of this death were pathetic--my brain is worn to rags rehearsing them. The mere death would have been cruelty enough, without overloading it and emphasizing it with that score of harsh and wanton details. The child was taken away when her mother was within three days of her, and would have given three decades for sight of her.

In my despair and unassuageable misery I upbraid myself for ever parting with her. But there is no use in that. Since it was to happen it would have happened.

With love
S. L. C.

The life at Tedworth Square that winter was one of almost complete
privacy. Of the hundreds of friends which Mark Twain had in London
scarcely half a dozen knew his address. He worked steadily on his
book of travels, 'Following the Equator', and wrote few letters
beyond business communications to Mr. Rogers. In one of these he
said, “I am appalled! Here I am trying to load you up with work
again after you have been dray-horsing over the same tiresome ground
for a year. It's too bad, and I am ashamed of it.”

But late in November he sent a letter of a different sort--one that
was to have an important bearing on the life of a girl today of
unique and world-wide distinction.

*****

To Mrs. H. H. Rogers, in New York City:

For and in behalf of Helen Keller, stone blind and deaf, and formerly dumb.

DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--Experience has convinced me that when one wishes to set a hard-worked man at something which he mightn't prefer to be bothered with, it is best to move upon him behind his wife. If she can't convince him it isn't worth while for other people to try.

Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at Lawrence Hutton's house when she was fourteen years old. Last July, in Boston, when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for admission to Radcliffe College. She passed without a single condition. She was allowed the same amount of time that is granted to other applicants, and this was shortened in her case by the fact that the question papers had to be read to her. Yet she scored an average of 90 as against an average of 78 on the part of the other applicants.

It won't do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages.

There is danger that she must retire from the struggle for a College degree for lack of support for herself and for Miss Sullivan, (the teacher who has been with her from the start--Mr. Rogers will remember her.) Mrs. Hutton writes to ask me to interest rich Englishmen in her case, and I would gladly try, but my secluded life will not permit it. I see nobody. Nobody knows my address. Nothing but the strictest hiding can enable me to write my long book in time.

So I thought of this scheme: Beg you to lay siege to your husband and get him to interest himself and Mess. John D. and William Rockefeller and the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen's case; get them to subscribe an annual aggregate of six or seven hundred or a thousand dollars--and agree to continue this for three or four years, until she has completed her college course. I'm not trying to limit their generosity--indeed no, they may pile that Standard Oil, Helen Keller College Fund as high as they please, they have my consent.

Mrs. Hutton's idea is to raise a permanent fund the interest upon which shall support Helen and her teacher and put them out of the fear of want. I shan't say a word against it, but she will find it a difficult and disheartening job, and meanwhile what is to become of that miraculous girl?

No, for immediate and sound effectiveness, the thing is for you to plead with Mr. Rogers for this hampered wonder of your sex, and send him clothed with plenary powers to plead with the other chiefs--they have spent mountains of money upon the worthiest benevolences, and I think that the same spirit which moved them to put their hands down through their hearts into their pockets in those cases will answer “Here!” when its name is called in this one. 638

There--I don't need to apologize to you or to H. H. for this appeal that I am making; I know you too well for that.

Good-bye with love to all of you

S. L. CLEMENS.

Laurence Hutton is on the staff of Harper's Monthly--close by, and handy when wanted.

The plea was not made in vain. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers interested
themselves most liberally in Helen Keller's fortune, and certainly
no one can say that any of those who contributed to her success ever
had reason for disappointment.

In his letter of grateful acknowledgment, which follows, Clemens
also takes occasion to thank Mr. Rogers for his further efforts in
the matter of his own difficulties. This particular reference
concerns the publishing, complications which by this time had arisen
between the American Publishing Company, of Hartford, and the house
in Franklin Square.

LONDON, Dec. 22, '96.

DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--It is superb! And I am beyond measure grateful to you both. I knew you would be interested in that wonderful girl, and that Mr. Rogers was already interested in her and touched by her; and I was sure that if nobody else helped her you two would; but you have gone far and away beyond the sum I expected--may your lines fall in pleasant places here and Hereafter for it!

The Huttons are as glad and grateful as they can be, and I am glad for their sakes as well as for Helen's.

I want to thank Mr. Rogers for crucifying himself again on the same old cross between Bliss and Harper; and goodness knows I hope he will come to enjoy it above all other dissipations yet, seeing that it has about it the elements of stability and permanency. However, at any time that he says sign, we're going to do it.

Ever sincerely Yours
S. L. CLEMENS.

XXXVI. LETTERS 1897. LONDON, SWITZERLAND, VIENNA

Mark Twain worked steadily on his book that sad winter and
managed to keep the gloom out of his chapters, though it is
noticeable that 'Following the Equator' is more serious than
his other books of travel. He wrote few letters, and these
only to his three closest friends, Howells, Twichell, and
Rogers. In the letter to Twichell, which follows, there is
mention of two unfinished manuscripts which he expects to
resume. One of these was a dream story, enthusiastically
begun, but perhaps with insufficient plot to carry it
through, for it never reached conclusion. He had already
tried it in one or two forms and would begin it again
presently. The identity of the other tale is uncertain.

*****

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

LONDON, Jan. 19, '97.

DEAR JOE,--Do I want you to write to me? Indeed I do. I do not want most people to write, but I do want you to do it. The others break my heart, but you will not. You have a something divine in you that is not in other men. You have the touch that heals, not lacerates. And you know the secret places of our hearts. You know our life--the outside of it--as the others do--and the inside of it--which they do not. You have seen our whole voyage. You have seen us go to sea, a cloud of sail--and the flag at the peak; and you see us now, chartless, adrift--derelicts; battered, water-logged, our sails a ruck of rags, our pride gone. For it is gone. And there is nothing in its place. The vanity of life was all we had, and there is no more vanity left in us. We are even ashamed of that we had; ashamed that we trusted the promises of life and builded high--to come to this!

I did know that Susy was part of us; I did not know that she could go away; I did not know that she could go away, and take our lives with her, yet leave our dull bodies behind. And I did not know what she was. To me she was but treasure in the bank; the amount known, the need to look at it daily, handle it, weigh it, count it, realize it, not necessary; and now that I would do it, it is too late; they tell me it is not there, has vanished away in a night, the bank is broken, my fortune is gone, I am a pauper. How am I to comprehend this? How am I to have it? Why am I robbed, and who is benefited?

Ah, well, Susy died at home. She had that privilege. Her dying eyes rested upon nothing that was strange to them, but only upon things which they had known and loved always and which had made her young years glad; and she had you, and Sue, and Katy, and John, and Ellen. This was happy fortune--I am thankful that it was vouchsafed to her. If she had died in another house-well, I think I could not have borne that. To us, our house was not unsentient matter--it had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see us with; and approvals, and solicitudes, and deep sympathies; it was of us, and we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome--and we could not enter it unmoved. And could we now, oh, now, in spirit we should enter it unshod.

I am trying to add to the “assets” which you estimate so generously. No, I am not. The thought is not in my mind. My purpose is other. I am working, but it is for the sake of the work--the “surcease of sorrow” that is found there. I work all the days, and trouble vanishes away when I use that magic. This book will not long stand between it and me, now; but that is no matter, I have many unwritten books to fly to for my preservation; the interval between the finishing of this one and the beginning of the next will not be more than an hour, at most. Continuances, I mean; for two of them are already well along--in fact have reached exactly the same stage in their journey: 19,000 words each. The present one will contain 180,000 words--130,000 are done. I am well protected; but Livy! She has nothing in the world to turn to; nothing but housekeeping, and doing things for the children and me. She does not see people, and cannot; books have lost their interest for her. She sits solitary; and all the day, and all the days, wonders how it all happened, and why. We others were always busy with our affairs, but Susy was her comrade--had to be driven from her loving persecutions--sometimes at 1 in the morning. To Livy the persecutions were welcome. It was heaven to her to be plagued like that. But it is ended now. Livy stands so in need of help; and none among us all could help her like you.

Some day you and I will walk again, Joe, and talk. I hope so. We could have such talks! We are all grateful to you and Harmony--how grateful it is not given to us to say in words. We pay as we can, in love; and in this coin practicing no economy.

Good bye, dear old Joe!
MARK.

The letters to Mr. Rogers were, for the most part, on matters of
business, but in one of them he said: “I am going to write with all
my might on this book, and follow it up with others as fast as I can
in the hope that within three years I can clear out the stuff that
is in me waiting to be written, and that I shall then die in the
promptest kind of a way and no fooling around.” And in one he
wrote: “You are the best friend ever a man had, and the surest.”

*****

To W. D. Howells, in New York

LONDON, Feb. 23, '97.

DEAR HOWELLS,--I find your generous article in the Weekly, and I want to thank you for its splendid praises, so daringly uttered and so warmly. The words stir the dead heart of me, and throw a glow of color into a life which sometimes seems to have grown wholly wan. I don't mean that I am miserable; no--worse than that--indifferent. Indifferent to nearly everything but work. I like that; I enjoy it, and stick to it. I do it without purpose and without ambition; merely for the love of it.

This mood will pass, some day--there is history for it. But it cannot pass until my wife comes up out of the submergence. She was always so quick to recover herself before, but now there is no rebound, and we are dead people who go through the motions of life. Indeed I am a mud image, and it will puzzle me to know what it is in me that writes, and has comedy-fancies and finds pleasure in phrasing them. It is a law of our nature, of course, or it wouldn't happen; the thing in me forgets the presence of the mud image and goes its own way, wholly unconscious of it and apparently of no kinship with it. I have finished my book, but I go on as if the end were indefinitely away--as indeed it is. There is no hurry--at any rate there is no limit.

Jean's spirits are good; Clara's are rising. They have youth--the only thing that was worth giving to the race.

These are sardonic times. Look at Greece, and that whole shabby muddle. But I am not sorry to be alive and privileged to look on. If I were not a hermit I would go to the House every day and see those people scuffle over it and blether about the brotherhood of the human race. This has been a bitter year for English pride, and I don't like to see England humbled--that is, not too much. We are sprung from her loins, and it hurts me. I am for republics, and she is the only comrade we've got, in that. We can't count France, and there is hardly enough of Switzerland to count. Beneath the governing crust England is sound-hearted--and sincere, too, and nearly straight. But I am appalled to notice that the wide extension of the surface has damaged her manners, and made her rather Americanly uncourteous on the lower levels.

Won't you give our love to the Howellses all and particular?

Sincerely yours
S. L. CLEMENS.

The travel-book did not finish easily, and more than once when he
thought it completed he found it necessary to cut and add and
change. The final chapters were not sent to the printer until the
middle of May, and in a letter to Mr. Rogers he commented: “A
successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out
of it.” Clemens was at the time contemplating a uniform edition of
his books, and in one of his letters to Mr. Rogers on the matter he
wrote, whimsically, “Now I was proposing to make a thousand sets at
a hundred dollars a set, and do the whole canvassing myself..... I
would load up every important jail and saloon in America with de
luxe editions of my books. But Mrs. Clemens and the children object
to this, I do not know why.” And, in a moment of depression: “You
see the lightning refuses to strike me--there is where the defect
is. We have to do our own striking as Barney Barnato did. But
nobody ever gets the courage until he goes crazy.”

They went to Switzerland for the summer to the village of Weggis, on
Lake Lucerne--“The charmingest place we ever lived in,” he declared,
“for repose, and restfulness, and superb scenery.” It was here that
he began work on a new story of Tom and Huck, and at least upon one
other manuscript. From a brief note to Mr. Rogers we learn
something of his employments and economies.

*****

To Henry H. Rogers, in New York:

LUCERNE, August the something or other, 1897.

DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I am writing a novel, and am getting along very well with it.

I believe that this place (Weggis, half an hour from Lucerne,) is the loveliest in the world, and the most satisfactory. We have a small house on the hillside all to ourselves, and our meals are served in it from the inn below on the lake shore. Six francs a day per head, house and food included. The scenery is beyond comparison beautiful. We have a row boat and some bicycles, and good roads, and no visitors. Nobody knows we are here. And Sunday in heaven is noisy compared to this quietness.

Sincerely yours
S. L. C.

*****

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

LUCERNE, Aug. 22, '97.

DEAR JOE,--Livy made a noble find on the Lucerne boat the other day on one of her shopping trips--George Williamson Smith--did I tell you about it? We had a lovely time with him, and such intellectual refreshment as we had not tasted in many a month.

And the other night we had a detachment of the jubilee Singers--6. I had known one of them in London 24 years ago. Three of the 6 were born in slavery, the others were children of slaves. How charming they were--in spirit, manner, language, pronunciation, enunciation, grammar, phrasing, matter, carriage, clothes--in every detail that goes to make the real lady and gentleman, and welcome guest. We went down to the village hotel and bought our tickets and entered the beer-hall, where a crowd of German and Swiss men and women sat grouped at round tables with their beer mugs in front of them--self-contained and unimpressionable looking people, an indifferent and unposted and disheartened audience--and up at the far end of the room sat the Jubilees in a row. The Singers got up and stood--the talking and glass jingling went on. Then rose and swelled out above those common earthly sounds one of those rich chords the secret of whose make only the Jubilees possess, and a spell fell upon that house. It was fine to see the faces light up with the pleased wonder and surprise of it. No one was indifferent any more; and when the singers finished, the camp was theirs. It was a triumph. It reminded me of Launcelot riding in Sir Kay's armor and astonishing complacent Knights who thought they had struck a soft thing. The Jubilees sang a lot of pieces. Arduous and painstaking cultivation has not diminished or artificialized their music, but on the contrary--to my surprise--has mightily reinforced its eloquence and beauty. Away back in the beginning--to my mind--their music made all other vocal music cheap; and that early notion is emphasized now. It is utterly beautiful, to me; and it moves me infinitely more than any other music can. I think that in the Jubilees and their songs America has produced the perfectest flower of the ages; and I wish it were a foreign product, so that she would worship it and lavish money on it and go properly crazy over it.

Now, these countries are different: they would do all that, if it were native. It is true they praise God, but that is merely a formality, and nothing in it; they open out their whole hearts to no foreigner.

The musical critics of the German press praise the Jubilees with great enthusiasm--acquired technique etc, included.

One of the jubilee men is a son of General Joe Johnson, and was educated by him after the war. The party came up to the house and we had a pleasant time.

This is paradise, here--but of course we have got to leave it by and by. The 18th of August--[Anniversary of Susy Clemens's death.]--has come and gone, Joe--and we still seem to live.

With love from us all.
MARK.

Clemens declared he would as soon spend his life in Weggis “as
anywhere else in the geography,” but October found them in Vienna
for the winter, at the Hotel Metropole. The Austrian capital was
just then in a political turmoil, the character of which is hinted
in the following:

*****

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

HOTEL METROPOLE,
VIENNA, Oct. 23, '97.

DEAR JOE,--We are gradually getting settled down and wonted. Vienna is not a cheap place to live in, but I have made one small arrangement which: has a distinctly economical aspect. The Vice Consul made the contract for me yesterday-to-wit: a barber is to come every morning 8.30 and shave me and keep my hair trimmed for $2.50 a month. I used to pay $1.50 per shave in our house in Hartford.

Does it suggest to you reflections when you reflect that this is the most important event which has happened to me in ten days--unless I count--in my handing a cabman over to the police day before yesterday, with the proper formalities, and promised to appear in court when his case comes up.

If I had time to run around and talk, I would do it; for there is much politics agoing, and it would be interesting if a body could get the hang of it. It is Christian and Jew by the horns--the advantage with the superior man, as usual--the superior man being the Jew every time and in all countries. Land, Joe, what chance would the Christian have in a country where there were 3 Jews to 10 Christians! Oh, not the shade of a shadow of a chance. The difference between the brain of the average Christian and that of the average Jew--certainly in Europe--is about the difference between a tadpole's and an Archbishop's. It's a marvelous, race--by long odds the most marvelous that the world has produced, I suppose.

And there's more politics--the clash between Czech and Austrian. I wish I could understand these quarrels, but of course I can't.

With the abounding love of us all

MARK.

In Following the Equator there was used an amusing picture showing
Mark Twain on his trip around the world. It was a trick photograph
made from a picture of Mark Twain taken in a steamer-chair, cut out
and combined with a dilapidated negro-cart drawn by a horse and an
ox. In it Clemens appears to be sitting luxuriously in the end of
the disreputable cart. His companions are two negroes. To the
creator of this ingenious effect Mark Twain sent a characteristic
acknowledgment.

*****

To T. S. Frisbie

VIENNA, Oct. 25, '97.

MR. T. S. FRISBIE,--Dear Sir: The picture has reached me, and has moved me deeply. That was a steady, sympathetic and honorable team, and although it was not swift, and not showy, it pulled me around the globe successfully, and always attracted its proper share of attention, even in the midst of the most costly and fashionable turnouts. Princes and dukes and other experts were always enthused by the harness and could hardly keep from trying to buy it. The barouche does not look as fine, now, as it did earlier-but that was before the earthquake.

The portraits of myself and uncle and nephew are very good indeed, and your impressionist reproduction of the palace of the Governor General of India is accurate and full of tender feeling.

I consider that this picture is much more than a work of art. How much more, one cannot say with exactness, but I should think two-thirds more.

Very truly yours
MARK TWAIN.

Following the Equator was issued by subscription through Mark
Twain's old publishers, the Blisses, of Hartford. The sale of it
was large, not only on account of the value of the book itself, but
also because of the sympathy of the American people with Mark
Twain's brave struggle to pay his debts. When the newspapers began
to print exaggerated stories of the vast profits that were piling
up, Bliss became worried, for he thought it would modify the
sympathy. He cabled Clemens for a denial, with the following
result:

*****

To Frank E. Bliss, in Hartford:

VIENNA, Nov. 4, 1897.

DEAR BLISS,--Your cablegram informing me that a report is in circulation which purports to come from me and which says I have recently made $82,000 and paid all my debts has just reached me, and I have cabled back my regret to you that it is not true. I wrote a letter--a private letter--a short time ago, in which I expressed the belief that I should be out of debt within the next twelvemonth. If you make as much as usual for me out of the book, that belief will crystallize into a fact, and I shall be wholly out of debt. I am encoring you now.

It is out of that moderate letter that the Eighty-Two Thousand-Dollar mare's nest has developed. But why do you worry about the various reports? They do not worry me. They are not unfriendly, and I don't see how they can do any harm. Be patient; you have but a little while to wait; the possible reports are nearly all in. It has been reported that I was seriously ill--it was another man; dying--it was another man; dead--the other man again. It has been reported that I have received a legacy it was another man; that I am out of debt--it was another man; and now comes this $82,000--still another man. It has been reported that I am writing books--for publication; I am not doing anything of the kind. It would surprise (and gratify) me if I should be able to get another book ready for the press within the next three years. You can see, yourself, that there isn't anything more to be reported--invention is exhausted. Therefore, don't worry, Bliss--the long night is breaking. As far as I can see, nothing remains to be reported, except that I have become a foreigner. When you hear it, don't you believe it. And don't take the trouble to deny it. Merely just raise the American flag on our house in Hartford, and let it talk.

Truly yours,
MARK TWAIN.

P. S. This is not a private letter. I am getting tired of private letters.

*****

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

VIENNA
HOTEL METROPOLE, NOV. 19, '97.

DEAR JOE,--Above is our private (and permanent) address for the winter. You needn't send letters by London.

I am very much obliged for Forrest's Austro-Hungarian articles. I have just finished reading the first one: and in it I find that his opinion and Vienna's are the same, upon a point which was puzzling me--the paucity (no, the absence) of Austrian Celebrities. He and Vienna both say the country cannot afford to allow great names to grow up; that the whole safety and prosperity of the Empire depends upon keeping things quiet; can't afford to have geniuses springing up and developing ideas and stirring the public soul. I am assured that every time a man finds himself blooming into fame, they just softly snake him down and relegate him to a wholesome obscurity. It is curious and interesting.

Three days ago the New York World sent and asked a friend of mine (correspondent of a London daily) to get some Christmas greetings from the celebrities of the Empire. She spoke of this. Two or three bright Austrians were present. They said “There are none who are known all over the world! none who have achieved fame; none who can point to their work and say it is known far and wide in the earth: there are no names; Kossuth (known because he had a father) and Lecher, who made the 12 hour speech; two names-nothing more. Every other country in the world, perhaps, has a giant or two whose heads are away up and can be seen, but ours. We've got the material--have always had it--but we have to suppress it; we can't afford to let it develop; our political salvation depends upon tranquillity--always has.”

Poor Livy! She is laid up with rheumatism; but she is getting along now. We have a good doctor, and he says she will be out of bed in a couple of days, but must stay in the house a week or ten.

Clara is working faithfully at her music, Jean at her usual studies, and we all send love.

MARK.

Mention has already been made of the political excitement in Vienna.
The trouble between the Hungarian and German legislative bodies
presently became violent. Clemens found himself intensely
interested, and was present in one of the galleries when it was
cleared by the police. All sorts of stories were circulated as to
what happened to him, one of which was cabled to America. A letter
to Twichell sets forth what really happened.

*****

To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:

HOTEL METROPOLE,
VIENNA, Dec. 10, '97.

DEAR JOE,--Pond sends me a Cleveland paper with a cablegram from here in it which says that when the police invaded the parliament and expelled the 11 members I waved my handkerchief and shouted 'Hoch die Deutschen!' and got hustled out. Oh dear, what a pity it is that one's adventures never happen! When the Ordner (sergeant-at-arms) came up to our gallery and was hurrying the people out, a friend tried to get leave for me to stay, by saying, “But this gentleman is a foreigner--you don't need to turn him out--he won't do any harm.”

“Oh, I know him very well--I recognize him by his pictures; and I should be very glad to let him stay, but I haven't any choice, because of the strictness of the orders.”

And so we all went out, and no one was hustled. Below, I ran across the London Times correspondent, and he showed me the way into the first gallery and I lost none of the show. The first gallery had not misbehaved, and was not disturbed.

... We cannot persuade Livy to go out in society yet, but all the lovely people come to see her; and Clara and I go to dinner parties, and around here and there, and we all have a most hospitable good time. Jean's woodcarving flourishes, and her other studies.

Good-bye Joe--and we all love all of you.

MARK.

Clemens made an article of the Austrian troubles, one of the best
things he ever wrote, and certainly one of the clearest elucidations
of the Austro-Hungarian confusions. It was published in Harper's
Magazine, and is now included in his complete works.

Thus far none of the Webster Company debts had been paid--at least,
none of importance. The money had been accumulating in Mr. Rogers's
hands, but Clemens was beginning to be depressed by the heavy
burden. He wrote asking for relief.

*****

Fragment of a letter to H. H. Rogers, in New York:

DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I throw up the sponge. I pull down the flag. Let us begin on the debts. I cannot bear the weight any longer. It totally unfits me for work. I have lost three entire months now. In that time I have begun twenty magazine articles and books--and flung every one of them aside in turn. The debts interfered every time, and took the spirit out of any work. And yet I have worked like a bond slave and wasted no time and spared no effort----