Last night, when I went to bed, Mrs.Clemens said, "George didn't take the cat down to the cellar--Rosa says he has left it shut up in the conservatory." So I went down to attend to Abner (the cat.) About 3 in the morning Mrs.C.woke me and said, "I do believe I hear that cat in the drawing-room--what did you do with him?" I answered up with the confidence of a man who has managed to do the right thing for once, and said "I opened the conservatory doors, took the library off the alarm, and spread everything open, so that there wasn't any obstruction between him and the cellar." Language wasn't capable of conveying this woman's disgust.But the sense of what she said, was, "He couldn't have done any harm in the conservatory--so you must go and make the entire house free to him and the burglars, imagining that he will prefer the coal-bins to the drawing-room.If you had had Mr.Howells to help you, I should have admired but not been astonished, because I should know that together you would be equal to it; but how you managed to contrive such a stately blunder all by yourself, is what I cannot understand."So, you see, even she knows how to appreciate our gifts.
Brisk times here.--Saturday, these things happened: Our neighbor Chas.
Smith was stricken with heart disease, and came near joining the majority; my publisher, Bliss, ditto, ditto; a neighbor's child died;neighbor Whitmore's sixth child added to his five other cases of measles;neighbor Niles sent for, and responded; Susie Warner down, abed; Mrs.
George Warner threatened with death during several hours; her son Frank, whilst imitating the marvels in Barnum's circus bills, thrown from his aged horse and brought home insensible: Warner's friend Max Yortzburgh, shot in the back by a locomotive and broken into 32 distinct pieces and his life threatened; and Mrs.Clemens, after writing all these cheerful things to Clara Spaulding, taken at midnight, and if the doctor had not been pretty prompt the contemplated Clemens would have called before his apartments were ready.
However, everybody is all right, now, except Yortzburg, and he is mending--that is, he is being mended.I knocked off, during these stirring times, and don't intend to go to work again till we go away for the Summer, 3 or 6 weeks hence.So I am writing to you not because Ihave anything to say, but because you don't have to answer and I need something to do this afternoon.....
I have a letter from a Congressman this morning, and he says Congress couldn't be persuaded to bother about Canadian pirates at a time like this when all legislation must have a political and Presidential bearing, else Congress won't look at it.So have changed my mind and my course;I go north, to kill a pirate.I must procure repose some way, else Icannot get down to work again.
Pray offer my most sincere and respectful approval to the President--is approval the proper word? I find it is the one I most value here in the household and seldomest get.
With our affection to you both.
Yrs ever MARK.
It was always dangerous to send strangers with letters of introduction to Mark Twain.They were so apt to arrive at the wrong time, or to find him in the wrong mood.Howells was willing to risk it, and that the result was only amusing instead of tragic is the best proof of their friendship.
To W.D.Howells, in Belmont, Mass.:
June 9, '80.
Well, old practical joker, the corpse of Mr.X---- has been here, and Ihave bedded it and fed it, and put down my work during 24 hours and tried my level best to make it do something, or say something, or appreciate something--but no, it was worse than Lazarus.A kind-hearted, well-meaning corpse was the Boston young man, but lawsy bless me, horribly dull company.Now, old man, unless you have great confidence in Mr.X's judgment, you ought to make him submit his article to you before he prints it.For only think how true I was to you: Every hour that he was here I was saying, gloatingly, "O G-- d--- you, when you are in bed and your light out, I will fix you" (meaning to kill him)...., but then the thought would follow--" No, Howells sent him--he shall be spared, he shall be respected he shall travel hell-wards by his own route."Breakfast is frozen by this time, and Mrs.Clemens correspondingly hot.
Good bye.
Yrs ever, MARK.
"I did not expect you to ask that man to live with you," Howells answered."What I was afraid of was that you would turn him out of doors, on sight, and so I tried to put in a good word for him.
After this when I want you to board people, I'll ask you.I am sorry for your suffering.I suppose I have mostly lost my smell for bores; but yours is preternaturally keen.I shall begin to be afraid I bore you.(How does that make you feel?)"In a letter to Twichell--a remarkable letter--when baby Jean Clemens was about a month old, we get a happy hint of conditions at Quarry Farm, and in the background a glimpse of Mark Twain's unfailing tragic reflection.
To Rev.Twichell, in Hartford:
QUARRY FARM, Aug.29 ['80].
DEAR OLD JOE,--Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he "didn't see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," I should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort of observer....
I will not go into details; it is not necessary; you will soon be in Hartford, where I have already hired a hall; the admission fee will be but a trifle.
It is curious to note the change in the stock-quotation of the Affection Board brought about by throwing this new security on the market.Four weeks ago the children still put Mamma at the head of the list right along, where she had always been.But now:
Jean Mamma Motley [a cat]
Fraulein [another]
Papa That is the way it stands, now Mamma is become No.2; I have dropped from No.4., and am become No.5.Some time ago it used to be nip and tuck between me and the cats, but after the cats "developed" I didn't stand any more show.