The "sketch of Elizabeth's time" is a brilliant piece of writing --an imaginary record of conversation and court manners in the good old days of free speech and performance, phrased in the language of the period.Gray, John Hay, Twichell, and others who had a chance to see it thought highly of it, and Hay had it set in type and a few proofs taken for private circulation.Some years afterward a West Point officer had a special font of antique type made for it, and printed a hundred copies.But the present-day reader would hardly be willing to include "Fireside Conversation in the Time of Queen Elizabeth" in Mark Twain's collected works.
Clemens was a strong Republican in those days, as his letters of this period show.His mention of the "caves" in the next is another reference to "The Canvasser's Tale."To W.D.Howells, in Boston:
Sept.14, 1876.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Yes, the collection of caves was the origin of it.
I changed it to echoes because these being invisible and intangible, constituted a still more absurd species of property, and yet a man could really own an echo, and sell it, too, for a high figure--such an echo as that at the Villa Siminetti, two miles from Milan, for instance.
My first purpose was to have the man make a collection of caves and afterwards of echoes; but perceived that the element of absurdity and impracticability was so nearly identical as to amount to a repetition of an idea.....
I will not, and do not, believe that there is a possibility of Hayes's defeat, but I want the victory to be sweeping.....
It seems odd to find myself interested in an election.I never was before.And I can't seem to get over my repugnance to reading or thinking about politics, yet.But in truth I care little about any party's politics--the man behind it is the important thing.
You may well know that Mrs.Clemens liked the Parlor Car--enjoyed it ever so much, and was indignant at you all through, and kept exploding into rages at you for pretending that such a woman ever existed--closing each and every explosion with "But it is just what such a woman would do."--"It is just what such a woman would say." They all voted the Parlor Car perfection--except me.I said they wouldn't have been allowed to court and quarrel there so long, uninterrupted; but at each critical moment the odious train-boy would come in and pile foul literature all over them four or five inches deep, and the lover would turn his head aside and curse--and presently that train-boy would be back again (as on all those Western roads) to take up the literature and leave prize candy.
Of course the thing is perfect, in the magazine, without the train-boy;but I was thinking of the stage and the groundlings.If the dainty touches went over their heads, the train-boy and other possible interruptions would fetch them every time.Would it mar the flow of the thing too much to insert that devil? I thought it over a couple of hours and concluded it wouldn't, and that he ought to be in for the sake of the groundlings (and to get new copyright on the piece.)And it seemed to me that now that the fourth act is so successfully written, why not go ahead and write the 3 preceding acts? And then after it is finished, let me put into it a low-comedy character (the girl's or the lover's father or uncle) and gobble a big pecuniary interest in your work for myself.Do not let this generous proposition disturb your rest --but do write the other 3 acts, and then it will be valuable to managers.And don't go and sell it to anybody, like Harte, but keep it for yourself.
Harte's play can be doctored till it will be entirely acceptable and then it will clear a great sum every year.I am out of all patience with Harte for selling it.The play entertained me hugely, even in its present crude state.
Love to you all.
Yrs ever, MARK
Following the Sellers success, Clemens had made many attempts at dramatic writing.Such undertakings had uniformly failed, but he had always been willing to try again.In the next letter we get the beginning of what proved his first and last direct literary association, that is to say, collaboration, with Bret Harte.
Clemens had great admiration for Harte's ability and believed that between them they could turn out a successful play.Whether or not this belief was justified will appear later.Howells's biography of Hayes, meanwhile, had not gone well.He reported that only two thousand copies had been sold in what was now the height of the campaign."There's success for you," he said; "it makes me despair of the Republic."Clemens, on his part, had made a speech for Hayes that Howells declared had put civil-service reform in a nutshell; he added: "You are the only Republican orator, quoted without distinction of party by all the newspapers."To W.D.Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Oct.11, 1876.
MY DEAR HOWELLS, This is a secret, to be known to nobody but you (of course I comprehend that Mrs.Howells is part of you) that Bret Harte came up here the other day and asked me to help him write a play and divide the swag, and I agreed.I am to put in Scotty Briggs (See Buck Fanshaw's Funeral, in "Roughing It.") and he is to put in a Chinaman (a, wonderfully funny creature, as Bret presents him--for 5 minutes--in his Sandy Bar play.) This Chinaman is to be the character of the play, and both of us will work on him and develop him.Bret is to draw a plot, and I am to do the same; we shall use the best of the two, or gouge from both and build a third.My plot is built--finished it yesterday--six days'