_ 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.
Part 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----
Rogers wrote, proposing a plan for beginning immediately upon the debts.
Clemens replied enthusiastically, and during the next few weeks wrote
every few days, expressing his delight in liquidation.
Extracts from letters to H. H. Rogers, in New York:
. . . We all delighted with your plan. Only don't leave B--out.
Apparently that claim has been inherited by some women--daughters, no
doubt. We don't want to see them lose any thing. B----- is an ass, and
disgruntled, but I don't care for that. I am responsible for the money
and must do the best I can to pay it..... I am writing hard--writing for
the creditors.
Dec. 29.
Land we are glad to see those debts diminishing. For the first time in
my life I am getting more pleasure out of paying money out than pulling
it in.
Jan. 2.
Since we have begun to pay off the debts I have abundant peace of mind
again--no sense of burden. Work is become a pleasure again--it is not
labor any longer.
March 7.
Mrs. Clemens has been reading the creditors' letters over and over again
and thanks you deeply for sending them, and says it is the only really
happy day she has had since Susy died. _