Complete Letters of Mark Twain. Mark Twain
on account of respect for his memory, for it merits little respect; not on account of sympathy with him, for his bloody deed placed him without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking: but out of a mere human commiseration for him that it was his misfortune to live in a dark age that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea.
I think it will do. Yrs. Clemens.
P. S. – The reaction is beginning and my stock is looking up. I am getting the bulliest offers for books and almanacs; am flooded with lecture invitations, and one periodical offers me $6,000 cash for 12 articles, of any length and on any subject, treated humorously or otherwise.
The suggested dedication “to the late Cain” may have been the humoristic impulse of the moment. At all events, it did not materialize.
Clemens’s enthusiasm for work was now such that he agreed with Redpath to return to the platform that autumn, and he began at once writing lectures. His disposal of the Buffalo paper had left him considerably in debt, and platforming was a sure and quick method of retrenchment. More than once in the years ahead Mark Twain would return to travel and one-night stands to lift a burden of debt. Brief letters to Redpath of this time have an interest and even a humor of their own.
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Letters to James Redpath, in Boston:
Elmira, June 27, 1871.
Dear red, – Wrote another lecture – a third one-today. It is the one I am going to deliver. I think I shall call it “Reminiscences of Some Pleasant Characters Whom I Have Met,” (or should the “whom” be left out?) It covers my whole acquaintance – kings, lunatics, idiots and all. Suppose you give the item a start in the Boston papers. If I write fifty lectures I shall only choose one and talk that one only.
No sir: Don’t you put that scarecrow (portrait) from the Galaxy in, I won’t stand that nightmare.
Yours,
Mark.
Elmira, July 10, 1871. Dear Redpath, – I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can’t be made to do it in any possible way.
Success to Fall’s carbuncle and many happy returns.
Yours,
Mark.
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To Mr. Fall, in Boston:
Elmira, N. Y. July 20, 1871.
Friend fall, – Redpath tells me to blow up. Here goes! I wanted you to scare Rondout off with a big price. $125 ain’t big. I got $100 the first time I ever talked there and now they have a much larger hall. It is a hard town to get to – I run a chance of getting caught by the ice and missing next engagement. Make the price $150 and let them draw out.
Yours,
Mark.
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Letters to James Redpath, in Boston:
Hartford, Tuesday Aug. 8, 1871.
Dear red, – I am different from other women; my mind changes oftener. People who have no mind can easily be steadfast and firm, but when a man is loaded down to the guards with it, as I am, every heavy sea of foreboding or inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo. See? Therefore, if you will notice, one week I am likely to give rigid instructions to confine me to New England; next week, send me to Arizona; the next week withdraw my name; the next week give you full untrammelled swing; and the week following modify it. You must try to keep the run of my mind, Redpath, it is your business being the agent, and it always was too many for me. It appears to me to be one of the finest pieces of mechanism I have ever met with. Now about the West, this week, I am willing that you shall retain all the Western engagements. But what I shall want next week is still with God.
Let us not profane the mysteries with soiled hands and prying eyes of sin.
Yours,
Mark.
P. S. Shall be here 2 weeks, will run up there when Nasby comes.
Elmira, N. Y. Sept. 15, 1871.
Dear Redpath, – I wish you would get me released from the lecture at Buffalo. I mortally hate that society there, and I don’t doubt they hired me. I once gave them a packed house free of charge, and they never even had the common politeness to thank me. They left me to shift for myself, too, a la Bret Harte at Harvard. Get me rid of Buffalo! Otherwise I’ll have no recourse left but to get sick the day I lecture there. I can get sick easy enough, by the simple process of saying the word – well never mind what word – I am not going to lecture there.
Yours,
Mark.
Buffalo, Sept. 26, 1871.
Dear Redpath, – We have thought it all over and decided that we can’t possibly talk after Feb. 2.
We shall take up our residence in Hartford 6 days from now.
Yours,
Mark.
XI. Letters 1871-72. Removal To Hartford. A Lecture Tour. “Roughing It.” First Letter To Howells
The house they had taken in Hartford was the Hooker property on Forest Street, a handsome place in a distinctly literary neighborhood. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and other well-known writers were within easy walking distance; Twichell was perhaps half a mile away.
It was the proper environment for Mark Twain. He settled his little family there, and was presently at Redpath’s office in Boston, which was a congenial place, as we have seen before. He did not fail to return to the company of Nasby, Josh Billings, and those others of Redpath’s “attractions” as long and as often as distance would permit. Bret Harte, who by this time had won fame, was also in Boston now, and frequently, with Howells, Aldrich, and Mark Twain, gathered in some quiet restaurant corner for a luncheon that lasted through a dim winter afternoon – a period of anecdote, reminiscence, and mirth. They were all young then, and laughed easily. Howells, has written of one such luncheon given by Ralph Keeler, a young Californian – a gathering at which James T. Fields was present “Nothing remains to me of the happy time but a sense of idle and aimless and joyful talk-play, beginning and ending nowhere, of eager laughter, of countless good stories from Fields, of a heat-lightning shimmer of wit from Aldrich, of an occasional concentration of our joint mockeries upon our host, who took it gladly.”
But a lecture circuit cannot be restricted to the radius of Boston. Clemens was presently writing to Redpath from Washington and points farther west.
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To James Redpath, in Boston:
Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1871.
Dear red, – I have come square out, thrown “Reminiscences” overboard, and taken “Artemus Ward, Humorist,” for my subject. Wrote it here on Friday and Saturday, and read it from Ms last night to an enormous house. It suits me and I’ll never deliver the nasty, nauseous “Reminiscences” any more.
Yours,
Mark.
The Artemus Ward lecture lasted eleven days, then he wrote:
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To Redpath and Fall, in Boston:
Buffalo depot, Dec. 8, 1871.
Redpath & fall, Boston, – Notify all hands that from this time I shall talk nothing but selections from my forthcoming book “Roughing It.” Tried it last night. Suits me tip-top.
SAM’L L. Clemens.
The “Roughing It” chapters proved a success, and continued in high favor through the rest of the season.
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To James Redpath, in Boston:
Logansport, Ind. Jan. 2, 1872.
Friend Redpath, – Had a splendid