The manager of a traveling theatrical company wrote that he had taken the liberty of dramatizing Tom Sawyer, and would like also the use of the author's name--the idea being to convey to the public that it was a Mark Twain play.In return for this slight favor the manager sent an invitation for Mark Twain to come and see the play--to be present on the opening night, as it were, at his (the manager's) expense.He added that if the play should be a go in the cities there might be some "arrangement" of profits.Apparently these inducements did not appeal to Mark Twain.The long unmailed reply is the more interesting, but probably the briefer one that follows it was quite as effective.
Unmailed Answer:
HARTFORD, Sept.8, '87.
DEAR SIR,--And so it has got around to you, at last; and you also have "taken the liberty." You are No.1365.When 1364 sweeter and better people, including the author, have "tried" to dramatize Tom Sawyer and did not arrive, what sort of show do you suppose you stand? That is a book, dear sir, which cannot be dramatized.One might as well try to dramatize any other hymn.Tom Sawyer is simply a hymn, put into prose form to give it a worldly air.
Why the pale doubt that flitteth dim and nebulous athwart the forecastle of your third sentence? Have no fears.Your piece will be a Go.
It will go out the back door on the first night.They've all done it --the 1364.So will 1365.Not one of us ever thought of the simple device of half-soling himself with a stove-lid.Ah, what suffering a little hindsight would have saved us.Treasure this hint.
How kind of you to invite me to the funeral.Go to; I have attended a thousand of them.I have seen Tom Sawyer's remains in all the different kinds of dramatic shrouds there are.You cannot start anything fresh.
Are you serious when you propose to pay my expence--if that is the Susquehannian way of spelling it? And can you be aware that I charge a hundred dollars a mile when I travel for pleasure? Do you realize that it is 432 miles to Susquehanna? Would it be handy for you to send me the $43,200 first, so I could be counting it as I come along; because railroading is pretty dreary to a sensitive nature when there's nothing sordid to buck at for Zeitvertreib.
Now as I understand it, dear and magnanimous 1365, you are going to recreate Tom Sawyer dramatically, and then do me the compliment to put me in the bills as father of this shady offspring.Sir, do you know that this kind of a compliment has destroyed people before now? Listen.
Twenty-four years ago, I was strangely handsome.The remains of it are still visible through the rifts of time.I was so handsome that human activities ceased as if spellbound when I came in view, and even inanimate things stopped to look--like locomotives, and district messenger boys and so-on.In San Francisco, in the rainy season I was often mistaken for fair weather.Upon one occasion I was traveling in the Sonora region, and stopped for an hour's nooning, to rest my horse and myself.All the town came out to look.The tribes of Indians gathered to look.A Piute squaw named her baby for me,--a voluntary compliment which pleased me greatly.Other attentions were paid me.
Last of all arrived the president and faculty of Sonora University and offered me the post of Professor of Moral Culture and the Dogmatic Humanities; which I accepted gratefully, and entered at once upon my duties.But my name had pleased the Indians, and in the deadly kindness of their hearts they went on naming their babies after me.I tried to stop it, but the Indians could not understand why I should object to so manifest a compliment.The thing grew and grew and spread and spread and became exceedingly embarrassing.The University stood it a couple of years; but then for the sake of the college they felt obliged to call a halt, although I had the sympathy of the whole faculty.The president himself said to me, "I am as sorry as I can be for you, and would still hold out if there were any hope ahead; but you see how it is: there are a hundred and thirty-two of them already, and fourteen precincts to hear from.The circumstance has brought your name into most wide and unfortunate renown.It causes much comment--I believe that that is not an over-statement.Some of this comment is palliative, but some of it --by patrons at a distance, who only know the statistics without the explanation,--is offensive, and in some cases even violent.Nine students have been called home.The trustees of the college have been growing more and more uneasy all these last months--steadily along with the implacable increase in your census--and I will not conceal from you that more than once they have touched upon the expediency of a change in the Professorship of Moral Culture.The coarsely sarcastic editorial in yesterday's Alta, headed Give the Moral Acrobat a Rest--has brought things to a crisis, and I am charged with the unpleasant duty of receiving your resignation."I know you only mean me a kindness, dear 1365, but it is a most deadly mistake.Please do not name your Injun for me.Truly Yours.
Mailed Answer:
NEW YORK, Sept.8.1887.
DEAR SIR,--Necessarily I cannot assent to so strange a proposition.And I think it but fair to warn you that if you put the piece on the stage, you must take the legal consequences.
Yours respectfully, S.L.CLEMENS.