MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--I have been so everlasting busy that Icouldn't write--and moreover I have been so unceasingly lazy that Icouldn't have written anyhow.I came here to take notes for a book, but I haven't done much but attend dinners and make speeches.But have had a jolly good time and I do hate to go away from these English folks; they make a stranger feel entirely at home--and they laugh so easily that it is a comfort to make after-dinner speeches here.I have made hundreds of friends; and last night in the crush of the opening of the New Guild-hall Library and Museum, I was surprised to meet a familiar face every few steps.Nearly 4,000 people, of both sexes, came and went during the evening, so I had a good opportunity to make a great many new acquaintances.
Livy is willing to come here with me next April and stay several months --so I am going home next Tuesday.I would sail on Saturday, but that is the day of the Lord Mayor's annual grand state dinner, when they say 900of the great men of the city sit down to table, a great many of them in their fine official and court paraphernalia, so I must not miss it.
However, I may yet change my mind and sail Saturday.I am looking at a fine Magic lantern which will cost a deal of money, and if I buy it Sammy may come and learn to make the gas and work the machinery, and paint pictures for it on glass.I mean to give exhibitions for charitable purposes in Hartford, and charge a dollar a head.
In a hurry, Ys affly SAM.
He sailed November 12th on the Batavia, arriving in New York two weeks later.There had been a presidential election in his absence.
General Grant had defeated Horace Greeley, a result, in some measure at least, attributed to the amusing and powerful pictures of the cartoonist, Thomas Nast.Mark Twain admired Greeley's talents, but he regarded him as poorly qualified for the nation's chief executive.He wrote:
To Th.Nast, in Morristown, N.J.:
HARTFORD, Nov.1872.
Nast, you more than any other man have won a prodigious victory for Grant--I mean, rather, for civilization and progress.Those pictures were simply marvelous, and if any man in the land has a right to hold his head up and be honestly proud of his share in this year's vast events that man is unquestionably yourself.We all do sincerely honor you, and are proud of you.
MARK TWAIN.
Perhaps Mark Twain was too busy at this time to write letters.His success in England had made him more than ever popular in America, and he could by no means keep up with the demands on him.In January he contributed to the New York Tribune some letters on the Sandwich Islands, but as these were more properly articles they do not seem to belong here.
He refused to go on the lecture circuit, though he permitted Redpath to book him for any occasional appearance, and it is due to one of these special engagements that we have the only letter preserved from this time.It is to Howells, and written with that exaggeration with which he was likely to embellish his difficulties.
We are not called upon to believe that there were really any such demonstrations as those ascribed to Warner and himself.
To W.D.Howells, in Boston:
FARMINGTON AVE, Hartford Feb.27.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I am in a sweat and Warner is in another.I told Redpath some time ago I would lecture in Boston any two days he might choose provided they were consecutive days--I never dreamed of his choosing days during Lent since that was his special horror--but all at once he telegraphs me, and hollers at me in ail manner of ways that I am booked for Boston March 5 of all days in the year--and to make matters just as mixed and uncertain as possible, Ican't find out to save my life whether he means to lecture me on the 6th or not.
Warner's been in here swearing like a lunatic, and saying he had written you to come on the 4th,--and I said, "You leather-head, if I talk in Boston both afternoon and evening March 5, I'll have to go to Boston the 4th,"--and then he just kicked up his heels and went off cursing after a fashion I never heard of before.
Now let's just leave this thing to Providence for 24 hours--you bet it will come out all right.
Yours ever MARK.
He was writing a book with Warner at this time--The Gilded Age--the two authors having been challenged by their wives one night at dinner to write a better book than the current novels they had been discussing with some severity.Clemens already had a story in his mind, and Warner agreed to collaborate in the writing.It was begun without delay.Clemens wrote the first three hundred and ninety-nine pages, and read there aloud to Warner, who took up the story at this point and continued it through twelve chapters, after which they worked alternately, and with great enjoyment.They also worked rapidly, and in April the story was completed.For a collaboration by two men so different in temperament and literary method it was a remarkable performance.
Another thing Mark Twain did that winter was to buy some land on Farmington Avenue and begin the building of a home.He had by no means given up returning to England, and made his plans to sail with Mrs.Clemens and Susy in May.Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira--[Later Mrs.John B.Stanchfield, of New York.]--a girlhood friend of Mrs.Clemens--was to accompany them.
The Daily Graphic heard of the proposed journey, and wrote, asking for a farewell word.His characteristic reply is the only letter of any kind that has survived from that spring.
To the Editor of "The Daily Graphic," in New York City:
HARTFORD, Apl.17, 1873.
ED.GRAPHIC,--Your note is received.If the following two lines which Ihave cut from it are your natural handwriting, then I understand you to ask me "for a farewell letter in the name of the American people." Bless you, the joy of the American people is just a little premature; I haven't gone yet.And what is more, I am not going to stay, when I do go.