Mark Twain's Letters 1876-1885, by Mark Twain

No—it wasn't Waring. I wonder what the devil has become of that man. He was to spend to-day with us, and the day's most gone, now.

We are enjoying your story with our usual unspeakableness; and I'm right glad you threw in the shipwreck and the mystery—I like it. Mrs. Crane thinks it's the best story you've written yet. We—but we always think the last one is the best. And why shouldn't it be? Practice helps.

P. S. I thought I had sent all our loves to all of you, but Mrs. Clemens says I haven't. Damn it, a body can't think of everything; but a woman thinks you can. I better seal this, now—else there'll be more criticism.

I perceive I haven't got the love in, yet. Well, we do send the love of all the family to all the Howellses.

     There had been some delay and postponement in the matter of
     the play which Howells and Clemens agreed to write. They
     did not put in the entire month of October as they had
     planned, but they did put in a portion of that month, the
     latter half, working out their old idea. In the end it
     became a revival of Colonel Sellers, or rather a caricature
     of that gentle hearted old visionary. Clemens had always
     complained that the actor Raymond had never brought out the
     finer shades of Colonel Sellers's character, but Raymond in
     his worst performance never belied his original as did
     Howells and Clemens in his dramatic revival. These two,
     working together, let their imaginations run riot with
     disastrous results. The reader can judge something of this
     himself, from The American Claimant the book which Mark
     Twain would later build from the play.

     But at this time they thought it a great triumph. They had
     “cracked their sides” laughing over its construction, as
     Howells once said, and they thought the world would do the
     same over its performance. They decided to offer it to
     Raymond, but rather haughtily, indifferently, because any
     number of other actors would be waiting for it.

     But this was a miscalculation. Raymond now turned the
     tables. Though favorable to the idea of a new play, he
     declared this one did not present his old Sellers at all,
     but a lunatic. In the end he returned the MS. with a brief
     note. Attempts had already been made to interest other
     actors, and would continue for some time.

XXIV. LETTERS, 1884, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS. CABLE'S GREAT APRIL FOOL. “HUCK FINN” IN PRESS. MARK TWAIN FOR CLEVELAND. CLEMENS AND CABLE.

     Mark Twain had a lingering attack of the dramatic fever that
     winter. He made a play of the Prince and Pauper, which
     Howells pronounced “too thin and slight and not half long
     enough.” He made another of Tom Sawyer, and probably
     destroyed it, for no trace of the MS. exists to-day. Howells
     could not join in these ventures, for he was otherwise
     occupied and had sickness in his household.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,—“O my goodn's”, as Jean says. You have now encountered at last the heaviest calamity that can befall an author. The scarlet fever, once domesticated, is a permanent member of the family. Money may desert you, friends forsake you, enemies grow indifferent to you, but the scarlet fever will be true to you, through thick and thin, till you be all saved or damned, down to the last one. I say these things to cheer you.

The bare suggestion of scarlet fever in the family makes me shudder; I believe I would almost rather have Osgood publish a book for me.

You folks have our most sincere sympathy. Oh, the intrusion of this hideous disease is an unspeakable disaster.

My billiard table is stacked up with books relating to the Sandwich Islands: the walls axe upholstered with scraps of paper penciled with notes drawn from them. I have saturated myself with knowledge of that unimaginably beautiful land and that most strange and fascinating people. And I have begun a story. Its hidden motive will illustrate a but-little considered fact in human nature; that the religious folly you are born in you will die in, no matter what apparently reasonabler religious folly may seem to have taken its place meanwhile, and abolished and obliterated it. I start Bill Ragsdale at 12 years of age, and the heroine at 4, in the midst of the ancient idolatrous system, with its picturesque and amazing customs and superstitions, 3 months before the arrival of the missionaries and the erection of a shallow Christianity upon the ruins of the old paganism. Then these two will become educated Christians, and highly civilized.

And then I will jump 15 years, and do Ragsdale's leper business. When we came to dramatize, we can draw a deal of matter from the story, all ready to our hand.

     He never finished the Sandwich Islands story which he and Howells
     were to dramatize later. His head filled up with other projects,
     such as publishing plans, reading-tours, and the like. The
     type-setting machine does not appear in the letters of this period,
     but it was an important factor, nevertheless. It was costing
     several thousand dollars a month for construction and becoming
     a heavy drain on Mark Twain's finances. It was necessary to
     recuperate, and the anxiety for a profitable play, or some other
     adventure that would bring a quick and generous return, grew out
     of this need.

     Clemens had established Charles L. Webster, his nephew by marriage,
     in a New York office, as selling agent for the Mississippi book and
     for his plays. He was also planning to let Webster publish the new
     book, Huck Finn.

     George W. Cable had proven his ability as a reader, and Clemens saw
     possibilities in a reading combination, which was first planned to
     include Aldrich, and Howells, and a private car.

     But Aldrich and Howells did not warm to the idea, and the car was
     eliminated from the plan. Cable came to visit Clemens in Hartford,
     and was taken with the mumps, so that the reading-trip was
     postponed.

     The fortunes of the Sellers play were most uncertain and becoming
     daily more doubtful. In February, Howells wrote: “If you have got
     any comfort in regard to our play I wish you would heave it into my
     bosom.”

     Cable recovered in time, and out of gratitude planned a great
     April-fool surprise for his host. He was a systematic man, and did
     it in his usual thorough way. He sent a “private and confidential”
      suggestion to a hundred and fifty of Mark Twain's friends and
     admirers, nearly all distinguished literary men. The suggestion
     was that each one of them should send a request for Mark Twain's
     autograph, timing it so that it would arrive on the 1st of April.
     All seemed to have responded. Mark Twain's writing-table on April
     Fool morning was heaped with letters, asking in every ridiculous
     fashion for his “valuable autograph.” The one from Aldrich was a
     fair sample. He wrote: “I am making a collection of autographs of
     our distinguished writers, and having read one of your works,
     Gabriel Convoy, I would like to add your name to the list.”

     Of course, the joke in this was that Gabriel Convoy was by Bret
     Harte, who by this time was thoroughly detested by Mark Twain. The
     first one or two of the letters puzzled the victim; then he
     comprehended the size and character of the joke and entered into it
     thoroughly. One of the letters was from Bloodgood H. Cutter, the
     “Poet Lariat” of Innocents Abroad. Cutter, of course, wrote in
     “poetry,” that is to say, doggerel. Mark Twain's April Fool was a
     most pleasant one.

                                             LITTLE NECK, LONG ISLAND.

         LONG ISLAND FARMER, TO HIS FRIEND AND PILGRIM BROTHER,

                        SAMUEL L. CLEMENS, ESQ.

   Friends, suggest in each one's behalf
   To write, and ask your autograph.
   To refuse that, I will not do,
   After the long voyage had with you.
   That was a memorable time You wrote in prose, I wrote in Rhyme To
   describe the wonders of each place, And the queer customs of each race.

   That is in my memory yet
   For while I live I'll not forget.
   I often think of that affair
   And the many that were with us there.

   As your friends think it for the best
   I ask your Autograph with the rest,
   Hoping you will it to me send
   'Twill please and cheer your dear old friend:

                    Yours truly,

                              BLOODGOOD H. CUTTER.

HARTFORD, Apl 8, '84.

MY DEAR HOWELLS, It took my breath away, and I haven't recovered it yet, entirely—I mean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of Huck Finn.

Now if you mean it, old man—if you are in earnest—proceed, in God's name, and be by me forever blest. I cannot conceive of a rational man deliberately piling such an atrocious job upon himself; but if there is such a man and you be that man, why then pile it on. It will cost me a pang every time I think of it, but this anguish will be eingebusst to me in the joy and comfort I shall get out of the not having to read the verfluchtete proofs myself. But if you have repented of your augenblichlicher Tobsucht and got back to calm cold reason again, I won't hold you to it unless I find I have got you down in writing somewhere. Herr, I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair and reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it.

     Howells had written that he would be glad to help out in the
     reading of the proofs of Huck Finn, which book Webster by
     this time had in hand. Replying to Clemens's eager and
     grateful acceptance now, he wrote: “It is all perfectly true
     about the generosity, unless I am going to read your proofs
     from one of the shabby motives which I always find at the
     bottom of my soul if I examine it.” A characteristic
     utterance, though we may be permitted to believe that his
     shabby motives were fewer and less shabby than those of
     mankind in general.

     The proofs which Howells was reading pleased him mightily.
     Once, during the summer, he wrote: “if I had written half as
     good a book as Huck Finn I shouldn't ask anything better
     than to read the proofs; even as it is, I don't, so send
     them on; they will always find me somewhere.”

     This was the summer of the Blaine-Cleveland campaign. Mark
     Twain, in company with many other leading men, had
     mugwumped, and was supporting Cleveland. From the next
     letter we gather something of the aspects of that memorable
     campaign, which was one of scandal and vituperation. We
     learn, too, that the young sculptor, Karl Gerhardt, having
     completed a three years' study in Paris, had returned to
     America a qualified artist.

ELMIRA, Aug. 21, '84.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,—This presidential campaign is too delicious for anything. Isn't human nature the most consummate sham and lie that was ever invented? Isn't man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all his aspects? Man, “know thyself “—and then thou wilt despise thyself, to a dead moral certainty. Take three quite good specimens—Hawley, Warner, and Charley Clark. Even I do not loathe Blaine more than they do; yet Hawley is howling for Blaine, Warner and Clark are eating their daily crow in the paper for him, and all three will vote for him. O Stultification, where is thy sting, O slave where is thy hickory!

I suppose you heard how a marble monument for which St. Gaudens was pecuniarily responsible, burned down in Hartford the other day, uninsured—for who in the world would ever think of insuring a marble shaft in a cemetery against a fire?—and left St. Gauden out of pocket $15,000.

It was a bad day for artists. Gerhardt finished my bust that day, and the work was pronounced admirable by all the kin and friends; but in putting it in plaster (or rather taking it out) next day it got ruined. It was four or five weeks hard work gone to the dogs. The news flew, and everybody on the farm flocked to the arbor and grouped themselves about the wreck in a profound and moving silence—the farm-help, the colored servants, the German nurse, the children, everybody—a silence interrupted at wide intervals by absent-minded ejaculations wising from unconscious breasts as the whole size of the disaster gradually worked its way home to the realization of one spirit after another.

Some burst out with one thing, some another; the German nurse put up her hands and said, “Oh, Schade! oh, schrecklich!” But Gerhardt said nothing; or almost that. He couldn't word it, I suppose. But he went to work, and by dark had everything thoroughly well under way for a fresh start in the morning; and in three days' time had built a new bust which was a trifle better than the old one—and to-morrow we shall put the finishing touches on it, and it will be about as good a one as nearly anybody can make.

If you run across anybody who wants a bust, be sure and recommend Gerhardt on my say-so.

     But Howells was determinedly for Blaine. “I shall vote for
     Blaine,” he replied. “I do not believe he is guilty of the
     things they accuse him of, and I know they are not proved
     against him. As for Cleveland, his private life may be no
     worse than that of most men, but as an enemy of that
     contemptible, hypocritical, lop-sided morality which says a
     woman shall suffer all the shame of unchastity and man none,
     I want to see him destroyed politically by his past. The
     men who defend him would take their wives to the White House
     if he were president, but if he married his concubine—'made
     her an honest woman' they would not go near him. I can't
     stand that.”

     Certainly this was sound logic, in that day, at least. But
     it left Clemens far from satisfied.

ELMIRA, Sept. 17, '84.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,—Somehow I can't seem to rest quiet under the idea of your voting for Blaine. I believe you said something about the country and the party. Certainly allegiance to these is well; but as certainly a man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor—the party or the country come second to that, and never first. I don't ask you to vote at all—I only urge you to not soil yourself by voting for Blaine.

When you wrote before, you were able to say the charges against him were not proven. But you know now that they are proven, and it seems to me that that bars you and all other honest and honorable men (who are independently situated) from voting for him.

It is not necessary to vote for Cleveland; the only necessary thing to do, as I understand it, is that a man shall keep himself clean, (by withholding his vote for an improper man) even though the party and the country go to destruction in consequence. It is not parties that make or save countries or that build them to greatness—it is clean men, clean ordinary citizens, rank and file, the masses. Clean masses are not made by individuals standing back till the rest become clean.

As I said before, I think a man's first duty is to his own honor; not to his country and not to his party. Don't be offended; I mean no offence. I am not so concerned about the rest of the nation, but—well, good-bye.

     There does not appear to be any further discussion of the matter
     between Howells and Clemens. Their letters for a time contained no
     suggestion of politics.

     Perhaps Mark Twain's own political conscience was not entirely clear
     in his repudiation of his party; at least we may believe from his
     next letter that his Cleveland enthusiasm was qualified by a
     willingness to support a Republican who would command his admiration
     and honor. The idea of an eleventh-hour nomination was rather
     startling, whatever its motive.

HARTFORD, Oct. 22, '84.

MY DEAR MR. PIERCE,—You know, as well as I do, that the reason the majority of republicans are going to vote for Blaine is because they feel that they cannot help themselves. Do not you believe that if Mr. Edmunds would consent to run for President, on the Independent ticket—even at this late day—he might be elected?

Well, if he wouldn't consent, but should even strenuously protest and say he wouldn't serve if elected, isn't it still wise and fair to nominate him and vote for him? since his protest would relieve him from all responsibility; and he couldn't surely find fault with people for forcing a compliment upon him. And do not you believe that his name thus compulsorily placed at the head of the Independent column would work absolutely certain defeat to Blain and save the country's honor?

Politicians often carry a victory by springing some disgraceful and rascally mine under the feet of the adversary at the eleventh hour; would it not be wholesome to vary this thing for once and spring as formidable a mine of a better sort under the enemy's works?

If Edmunds's name were put up, I would vote for him in the teeth of all the protesting and blaspheming he could do in a month; and there are lots of others who would do likewise.

If this notion is not a foolish and wicked one, won't you just consult with some chief Independents, and see if they won't call a sudden convention and whoop the thing through? To nominate Edmunds the 1st of November, would be soon enough, wouldn't it?

Yr Truly
S. L. CLEMENS.

     Clemens and Cable set out on their reading-tour in November.
     They were a curiously-assorted pair: Cable was of orthodox
     religion, exact as to habits, neat, prim, all that Clemens
     was not. In the beginning Cable undertook to read the Bible
     aloud to Clemens each evening, but this part of the day's
     program was presently omitted by request. If they spent
     Sunday in a town, Cable was up bright and early visiting the
     various churches and Sunday-schools, while Mark Twain
     remained at the hotel, in bed, reading or asleep.

XXV. THE GREAT YEAR OF 1885. CLEMENS AND CABLE. PUBLICATION OF “HUCK FINN.” THE GRANT MEMOIRS. MARK TWAIN AT FIFTY.

     The year 1885 was in some respects the most important, certainly the
     most pleasantly exciting, in Mark Twain's life. It was the year in
     which he entered fully into the publishing business and launched one
     of the most spectacular of all publishing adventures, The Personal
     Memoirs of General U. S. Grant. Clemens had not intended to do
     general publishing when he arranged with Webster to become
     sales-agent for the Mississippi book, and later general agent for
     Huck Finn's adventures; he had intended only to handle his own
     books, because he was pretty thoroughly dissatisfied with other
     publishing arrangements. Even the Library of Humor, which Howells,
     with Clark, of the Courant, had put together for him, he left with
     Osgood until that publisher failed, during the spring of 1885.
     Certainly he never dreamed of undertaking anything of the
     proportions of the Grant book.

     He had always believed that Grant could make a book. More than
     once, when they had met, he had urged the General to prepare his
     memoirs for publication. Howells, in his 'My Mark Twain', tells of
     going with Clemens to see Grant, then a member of the ill-fated firm
     of Grant and Ward, and how they lunched on beans, bacon and coffee
     brought in from a near-by restaurant. It was while they were eating
     this soldier fare that Clemens—very likely abetted by Howells
     —especially urged the great commander to prepare his memoirs. But
     Grant had become a financier, as he believed, and the prospect of
     literary earnings, however large, did not appeal to him.
     Furthermore, he was convinced that he was without literary ability
     and that a book by him would prove a failure.

     But then, by and by, came a failure more disastrous than anything he
     had foreseen—the downfall of his firm through the Napoleonic
     rascality of Ward. General Grant was utterly ruined; he was left
     without income and apparently without the means of earning one. It
     was the period when the great War Series was appeasing in the
     Century Magazine. General Grant, hard-pressed, was induced by the
     editors to prepare one or more articles, and, finding that he could
     write them, became interested in the idea of a book. It is
     unnecessary to repeat here the story of how the publication of this
     important work passed into the hands of Mark Twain; that is to say,
     the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co., the details having been fully
     given elsewhere.—[See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap. cliv.]—

     We will now return for the moment to other matters, as reported in
     order by the letters. Clemens and Cable had continued their
     reading-tour into Canada, and in February found themselves in
     Montreal. Here they were invited by the Toque Bleue Snow-shoe Club
     to join in one of their weekly excursions across Mt. Royal. They
     could not go, and the reasons given by Mark Twain are not without
     interest. The letter is to Mr. George Iles, author of Flame,
     Electricity, and the Camera, and many other useful works.

DETROIT, February 12, 1885.

Midnight, P.S.

MY DEAR ILES,—I got your other telegram a while ago, and answered it, explaining that I get only a couple of hours in the middle of the day for social life. I know it doesn't seem rational that a man should have to lie abed all day in order to be rested and equipped for talking an hour at night, and yet in my case and Cable's it is so. Unless I get a great deal of rest, a ghastly dulness settles down upon me on the platform, and turns my performance into work, and hard work, whereas it ought always to be pastime, recreation, solid enjoyment. Usually it is just this latter, but that is because I take my rest faithfully, and prepare myself to do my duty by my audience.

I am the obliged and appreciative servant of my brethren of the Snow-shoe Club, and nothing in the world would delight me more than to come to their house without naming time or terms on my own part—but you see how it is. My cast iron duty is to my audience—it leaves me no liberty and no option.

               I am Sincerely yours

                              S. L. CLEMENS.

     In the next letter we reach the end of the Clemens-Cable venture and
     get a characteristic summing up of Mark Twain's general attitude
     toward the companion of his travels. It must be read only in the
     clear realization of Mark Twain's attitude toward orthodoxy, and his
     habit of humor. Cable was as rigidly orthodox as Mark Twain was
     revolutionary. The two were never anything but the best of friends.

PHILADA. Feb. 27, '85.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,—To-night in Baltimore, to-morrow afternoon and night in Washington, and my four-months platform campaign is ended at last. It has been a curious experience. It has taught me that Cable's gifts of mind are greater and higher than I had suspected. But—

That “But” is pointing toward his religion. You will never, never know, never divine, guess, imagine, how loathsome a thing the Christian religion can be made until you come to know and study Cable daily and hourly. Mind you, I like him; he is pleasant company; I rage and swear at him sometimes, but we do not quarrel; we get along mighty happily together; but in him and his person I have learned to hate all religions. He has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath-day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.

Nat Goodwin was on the train yesterday. He plays in Washington all the coming week. He is very anxious to get our Sellers play and play it under changed names. I said the only thing I could do would be to write to you. Well, I've done it.

     Clemens and Webster were often at the house of General Grant during
     these early days of 1885, and it must have been Webster who was
     present with Clemens on the great occasion described in the
     following telegram. It was on the last day and hour of President
     Arthur's administration that the bill was passed which placed
     Ulysses S. Grant as full General with full pay on the retired list,
     and it is said that the congressional clock was set back in order
     that this enactment might become a law before the administration
     changed. General Grant had by this time developed cancer and was
     already in feeble health.

NEW YORK, Mar. 4, 1885.

To MRS. S. L. CLEMENS, We were at General Grant's at noon and a telegram arrived that the last act of the expiring congress late this morning retired him with full General's rank and accompanying emoluments. The effect upon him was like raising the dead. We were present when the telegram was put in his hand.

     Something has been mentioned before of Mark Twain's investments and
     the generally unprofitable habit of them. He had a trusting nature,
     and was usually willing to invest money on any plausible
     recommendation. He was one of thousands such, and being a person of
     distinction he now and then received letters of inquiry, complaint,
     or condolence. A minister wrote him that he had bought some stocks
     recommended by a Hartford banker and advertised in a religious
     paper. He added, “After I made that purchase they wrote me that you
     had just bought a hundred shares and that you were a 'shrewd' man.”
      The writer closed by asking for further information. He received
     it, as follows:

WASHINGTON, Mch. 2,'85.

MY DEAR SIR,—I take my earliest opportunity to answer your favor of Feb. B—— was premature in calling me a “shrewd man.” I wasn't one at that time, but am one now—that is, I am at least too shrewd to ever again invest in anything put on the market by B——. I know nothing whatever about the Bank Note Co., and never did know anything about it. B—— sold me about $4,000 or $5,000 worth of the stock at $110, and I own it yet. He sold me $10,000 worth of another rose-tinted stock about the same time. I have got that yet, also. I judge that a peculiarity of B——'s stocks is that they are of the staying kind. I think you should have asked somebody else whether I was a shrewd man or not for two reasons: the stock was advertised in a religious paper, a circumstance which was very suspicious; and the compliment came to you from a man who was interested to make a purchaser of you. I am afraid you deserve your loss. A financial scheme advertised in any religious paper is a thing which any living person ought to know enough to avoid; and when the factor is added that M. runs that religious paper, a dead person ought to know enough to avoid it.

Very Truly Yours
S. L. CLEMENS.

     The story of Huck Finn was having a wide success. Webster handled
     it skillfully, and the sales were large. In almost every quarter
     its welcome was enthusiastic. Here and there, however, could be
     found an exception; Huck's morals were not always approved of by
     library reading-committees. The first instance of this kind was
     reported from Concord; and would seem not to have depressed the
     author-publisher.

DEAR CHARLEY,—The Committee of the Public Library of Concord, Mass, have given us a rattling tip-top puff which will go into every paper in the country. They have expelled Huck from their library as “trash and suitable only for the slums.” That will sell 25,000 copies for us sure.

     Perhaps the Concord Free Trade Club had some idea of making amends
     to Mark Twain for the slight put upon his book by their librarians,
     for immediately after the Huck Finn incident they notified him of
     his election to honorary membership.

     Those were the days of “authors' readings,” and Clemens and Howells
     not infrequently assisted at these functions, usually given as
     benefits of one kind or another. From the next letter, written
     following an entertainment given for the Longfellow memorial, we
     gather that Mark Twain's opinion of Howells's reading was steadily
     improving.

HARTFORD, May 5, '85.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,—.... Who taught you to read? Observation and thought, I guess. And practice at the Tavern Club?—yes; and that was the best teaching of all:

Well, you sent even your daintiest and most delicate and fleeting points home to that audience—absolute proof of good reading. But you couldn't read worth a damn a few years ago. I do not say this to flatter. It is true I looked around for you when I was leaving, but you had already gone.

Alas, Osgood has failed at last. It was easy to see that he was on the very verge of it a year ago, and it was also easy to see that he was still on the verge of it a month or two ago; but I continued to hope—but not expect that he would pull through. The Library of Humor is at his dwelling house, and he will hand it to you whenever you want it.

To save it from any possibility of getting mixed up in the failure, perhaps you had better send down and get it. I told him, the other day, that an order of any kind from you would be his sufficient warrant for its delivery to you.

In two days General Grant has dictated 50 pages of foolscap, and thus the Wilderness and Appomattox stand for all time in his own words. This makes the second volume of his book as valuable as the first.

     “I am exceedingly glad,” wrote Howells, “that you approve of my
     reading, for it gives me some hope that I may do something on the
     platform next winter.... but I would never read within a hundred
     miles of you, if I could help it. You simply straddled down to the
     footlights and took that house up in the hollow of your hand and
     tickled it.”

ELMIRA, July 21, 1885.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,—You are really my only author; I am restricted to you, I wouldn't give a damn for the rest.

I bored through Middlemarch during the past week, with its labored and tedious analyses of feelings and motives, its paltry and tiresome people, its unexciting and uninteresting story, and its frequent blinding flashes of single-sentence poetry, philosophy, wit, and what not, and nearly died from the overwork. I wouldn't read another of those books for a farm. I did try to read one other—Daniel Deronda. I dragged through three chapters, losing flesh all the time, and then was honest enough to quit, and confess to myself that I haven't any romance literature appetite, as far as I can see, except for your books.

But what I started to say, was, that I have just read Part II of Indian Summer, and to my mind there isn't a waste line in it, or one that could be improved. I read it yesterday, ending with that opinion; and read it again to-day, ending with the same opinion emphasized. I haven't read Part I yet, because that number must have reached Hartford after we left; but we are going to send down town for a copy, and when it comes I am to read both parts aloud to the family. It is a beautiful story, and makes a body laugh all the time, and cry inside, and feel so old and so forlorn; and gives him gracious glimpses of his lost youth that fill him with a measureless regret, and build up in him a cloudy sense of his having been a prince, once, in some enchanted far-off land, and of being an exile now, and desolate—and Lord, no chance ever to get back there again! That is the thing that hurts. Well, you have done it with marvelous facility and you make all the motives and feelings perfectly clear without analyzing the guts out of them, the way George Eliot does. I can't stand George Eliot and Hawthorne and those people; I see what they are at a hundred years before they get to it and they just tire me to death. And as for “The Bostonians,” I would rather be damned to John Bunyan's heaven than read that.

     It is as easy to understand Mark Twain's enjoyment of Indian Summer
     as his revolt against Daniel Deronda and The Bostonians. He cared
     little for writing that did not convey its purpose in the simplest
     and most direct terms. It is interesting to note that in thanking
     Clemens for his compliment Howells wrote: “What people cannot see is
     that I analyze as little as possible; they go on talking about the
     analytical school, which I am supposed to belong to, and I want to
     thank you for using your eyes..... Did you ever read De Foe's
     'Roxana'? If not, then read it, not merely for some of the deepest
     insights into the lying, suffering, sinning, well-meaning human
     soul, but for the best and most natural English that a book was ever
     written in.”

     General Grant worked steadily on his book, dictating when he could,
     making brief notes on slips of paper when he could no longer speak.
     Clemens visited him at Mt. McGregor and brought the dying soldier
     the comforting news that enough of his books were already sold to
     provide generously for his family, and that the sales would
     aggregate at least twice as much by the end of the year.

     This was some time in July. On the 23d of that month General Grant
     died. Immediately there was a newspaper discussion as to the most
     suitable place for the great chieftain to lie. Mark Twain's
     contribution to this debate, though in the form of an open letter,
     seems worthy of preservation here.

To THE EDITOR OP' THE SUN:—SIR,—The newspaper atmosphere is charged with objections to New York as a place of sepulchre for General Grant, and the objectors are strenuous that Washington is the right place. They offer good reasons—good temporary reasons—for both of these positions.

But it seems to me that temporary reasons are not mete for the occasion. We need to consider posterity rather than our own generation. We should select a grave which will not merely be in the right place now, but will still be in the right place 500 years from now.

How does Washington promise as to that? You have only to hit it in one place to kill it. Some day the west will be numerically strong enough to move the seat of government; her past attempts are a fair warning that when the day comes she will do it. Then the city of Washington will lose its consequence and pass out of the public view and public talk. It is quite within the possibilities that, a century hence, people would wonder and say, “How did your predecessors come to bury their great dead in this deserted place?”

But as long as American civilisation lasts New York will last. I cannot but think she has been well and wisely chosen as the guardian of a grave which is destined to become almost the most conspicuous in the world's history. Twenty centuries from now New York will still be New York, still a vast city, and the most notable object in it will still be the tomb and monument of General Grant.