Complete Letters of Mark Twain. Mark Twain
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Bliss had agreed to pay, on the retail price of the book. The book was Roughing It, though this title was not decided upon until considerably later. Orion Clemens eagerly furnished a detailed memorandum of the route of their overland journey, which brought this enthusiastic acknowledgment:
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To Orion Clemens, in St. Louis:
BUF., 1870.
Dear Bro., – I find that your little memorandum book is going to be ever so much use to me, and will enable me to make quite a coherent narrative of the Plains journey instead of slurring it over and jumping 2,000 miles at a stride. The book I am writing will sell. In return for the use of the little memorandum book I shall take the greatest pleasure in forwarding to you the third $1,000 which the publisher of the forthcoming work sends me or the first $1,000, I am not particular – they will both be in the first quarterly statement of account from the publisher.
In great haste,
Yr Obliged Bro.
Sam.
Love to Mollie. We are all getting along tolerably well.
Mr. Langdon died early in August, and Mrs. Clemens returned to Buffalo, exhausted in mind and body. If she hoped for rest now, in the quiet of her own home, she was disappointed, as the two brief letters that follow clearly show.
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To Mrs. Moffett, in Fredonia, N. Y.:
Buffalo, Aug. 31, 70.
My dear sister, – I know I ought to be thrashed for not writing you, but I have kept putting it off. We get heaps of letters every day; it is a comfort to have somebody like you that will let us shirk and be patient over it. We got the book and I did think I wrote a line thanking you for it-but I suppose I neglected it.
We are getting along tolerably well. Mother [Mrs. Langdon] is here, and Miss Emma Nye. Livy cannot sleep since her father’s death – but I give her a narcotic every night and make her. I am just as busy as I can be – am still writing for the Galaxy and also writing a book like the “Innocents” in size and style. I have got my work ciphered down to days, and I haven’t a single day to spare between this and the date which, by written contract I am to deliver the M.S. of the book to the publisher.
– In a hurry,
Affectionately,
Sam.
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To Orion Clemens, in St, Louis:
BUF. Sept. 9th, 1870.
My dear Bro, – O here! I don’t want to be consulted at all about Tenn. I don’t want it even mentioned to me. When I make a suggestion it is for you to act upon it or throw it aside, but I beseech you never to ask my advice, opinion or consent about that hated property. If it was because I felt the slightest personal interest in the infernal land that I ever made a suggestion, the suggestion would never be made.
Do exactly as you please with the land – always remember this – that so trivial a percentage as ten per cent will never sell it.
It is only a bid for a somnambulist.
I have no time to turn round, a young lady visitor (schoolmate of Livy’s) is dying in the house of typhoid fever (parents are in South Carolina) and the premises are full of nurses and doctors and we are all fagged out.
Yrs.
Sam.
Miss Nye, who had come to cheer her old schoolmate, had been prostrated with the deadly fever soon after her arrival. Another period of anxiety and nursing followed. Mrs. Clemens, in spite of her frail health, devoted much time to her dying friend, until by the time the end came she was herself in a precarious condition. This was at the end of September. A little more than a month later, November 7th, her first child, Langdon Clemens, was prematurely born. To the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, of Hartford, Mark Twain characteristically announced the new arrival.
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To Rev. Joseph H. Twichell and wife, in Hartford, Conn.:
Buffalo, Nov 12, ’70.
Dear uncle and aunt, – I came into the world on the 7th inst., and consequently am about five days old, now. I have had wretched health ever since I made my appearance. First one thing and then another has kept me under the weather, and as a general thing I have been chilly and uncomfortable.
I am not corpulent, nor am I robust in any way. At birth I only weighed 4 1/2 pounds with my clothes on – and the clothes were the chief feature of the weight, too, I am obliged to confess. But I am doing finely, all things considered. I was at a standstill for 3 days and a half, but during the last 24 hours I have gained nearly an ounce, avoirdupois.
They all say I look very old and venerable – and I am aware, myself, that I never smile. Life seems a serious thing, what I have seen of it – and my observation teaches me that it is made up mainly of hiccups, unnecessary washings, and colic. But no doubt you, who are old, have long since grown accustomed and reconciled to what seems to me such a disagreeable novelty.
My father said, this morning, when my face was in repose and thoughtful, that I looked precisely as young Edward Twichell of Hartford used to look some is months ago – chin, mouth, forehead, expression – everything.
My little mother is very bright and cheery, and I guess she is pretty happy, but I don’t know what about. She laughs a great deal, notwithstanding she is sick abed. And she eats a great deal, though she says that is because the nurse desires it. And when she has had all the nurse desires her to have, she asks for more. She is getting along very well indeed.
My aunt Susie Crane has been here some ten days or two weeks, but goes home today, and Granny Fairbanks of Cleveland arrives to take her place[14].
Very lovingly,
Langdon Clemens.
P. S. Father said I had better write because you would be more interested in me, just now, than in the rest of the family.
Clemens had made the acquaintance of the Rev. Joseph Hopkins Twichell and his wife during his several sojourns in Hartford, in connection with his book publication, and the two men had immediately become firm friends. Twichell had come to Elmira in February to the wedding to assist Rev. Thos. K. Beecher in the marriage ceremony. Joseph Twichell was a devout Christian, while Mark Twain was a doubter, even a scoffer, where orthodoxy was concerned, yet the sincerity and humanity of the two men drew them together; their friendship was lifelong.
A second letter to Twichell, something more than a month later, shows a somewhat improved condition in the Clemens household.
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To Rev. Twichell, in Hartford:
BUF. Dec. 19th, 1870.
Dear J. H., – All is well with us, I believe – though for some days the baby was quite ill. We consider him nearly restored to health now, however. Ask my brother about us – you will find him at Bliss’s publishing office, where he is gone to edit Bliss’s new paper – left here last Monday. Make his and his wife’s acquaintance. Take Mrs. T. to see them as soon as they are fixed.
Livy is up, and the prince keeps her busy and anxious these latter days and nights, but I am a bachelor up stairs and don’t have to jump up and get the soothing syrup – though I would as soon do it as not, I assure you. (Livy will be certain to read this letter.)
Tell Harmony (Mrs. T.) that I do hold the baby, and do it pretty handily, too, although with occasional apprehensions that his loose head will fall off. I don’t have to quiet him – he hardly ever utters a cry. He is always thinking about something. He is a patient, good little baby.
Smoke? I always smoke from 3 till 5 Sunday afternoons – and in New York the other day I smoked a week, day and night. But when Livy is well I smoke only those two hours on Sunday. I’m “boss” of the habit, now, and shall never let it boss me any more. Originally, I quit solely on Livy’s account, (not that I believed there was the faintest reason in the matter, but just as I would
Mrs. Fairbanks, of the Quaker City excursion.