LETTERS 1881, TO HOWELLS AND OTHERS.ASSISTING A YOUNG SCULPTOR.
LITERARY PLANS
With all of Mark Twain's admiration for Grant, he had opposed him as a third-term President and approved of the nomination of Garfield.He had made speeches for Garfield during the campaign just ended, and had been otherwise active in his support.Upon Garfield's election, however, he felt himself entitled to no special favor, and the single request which he preferred at length could hardly be classed as, personal, though made for a "personal friend."To President-elect James A.Garfield, in Washington:
HARTFORD, Jany.12, '81.
GEN.GARFIELD
DEAR SIR,--Several times since your election persons wanting office have asked me "to use my influence" with you in their behalf.
To word it in that way was such a pleasant compliment to me that I never complied.I could not without exposing the fact that I hadn't any influence with you and that was a thing I had no mind to do.
It seems to me that it is better to have a good man's flattering estimate of my influence--and to keep it--than to fool it away with trying to get him an office.But when my brother--on my wife's side--Mr.Charles J.
Langdon--late of the Chicago Convention--desires me to speak a word for Mr.Fred Douglass, I am not asked "to use my influence" consequently I am not risking anything.So I am writing this as a ****** citizen.I am not drawing on my fund of influence at all.A ****** citizen may express a desire with all propriety, in the matter of a recommendation to office, and so I beg permission to hope that you will retain Mr.Douglass in his present office of Marshall of the District of Columbia, if such a course will not clash with your own preferences or with the expediencies and interest of your administration.I offer this petition with peculiar pleasure and strong desire, because I so honor this man's high and blemishless character and so admire his brave, long crusade for the liberties and elevation of his race.
He is a personal friend of mine, but that is nothing to the point, his history would move me to say these things without that, and I feel them too.
With great respect I am, General, Yours truly, S.L.CLEMENS.
Clemens would go out of his way any time to grant favor to the colored race.His childhood associations were partly accountable for this, but he also felt that the white man owed the negro a debt for generations of enforced bondage.He would lecture any time in a colored church, when he would as likely as not refuse point-blank to speak for a white congregation.Once, in Elmira, he received a request, poorly and none too politely phrased, to speak for one of the churches.He was annoyed and about to send a brief refusal, when Mrs.Clemens, who was present, said:
"I think I know that church, and if so this preacher is a colored man; he does not know how to write a polished letter--how should he?" Her husband's manner changed so suddenly that she added:
"I will give you a motto, and it will be useful to you if you will adopt it: Consider every man colored until he is proved white."To W.D.Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Feb.27, 1881.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I go to West Point with Twichell tomorrow, but shall be back Tuesday or Wednesday; and then just as soon thereafter as you and Mrs.Howells and Winny can come you will find us ready and most glad to see you--and the longer you can stay the gladder we shall be.I am not going to have a thing to do, but you shall work if you want to.On the evening of March 10th, I am going to read to the colored folk in the African Church here (no whites admitted except such as I bring with me), and a choir of colored folk will sing jubilee songs.I count on a good time, and shall hope to have you folks there, and Livy.I read in Twichell's chapel Friday night and had a most rattling high time--but the thing that went best of all was Uncle Remus's Tar Baby.I mean to try that on my dusky audience.They've all heard that tale from childhood--at least the older members have.
I arrived home in time to make a most noble blunder--invited Charley Warner here (in Livy's name) to dinner with the Gerhardts, and told him Livy had invited his wife by letter and by word of mouth also.I don't know where I got these impressions, but I came home feeling as one does who realizes that he has done a neat thing for once and left no flaws or loop-holes.Well, Livy said she had never told me to invite Charley and she hadn't dreamed of inviting Susy, and moreover there wasn't any dinner, but just one lean duck.But Susy Warner's intuitions were correct--so she choked off Charley, and staid home herself--we waited dinner an hour and you ought to have seen that duck when he was done drying in the oven.
MARK.
Clemens and his wife were always privately assisting worthy and ambitious young people along the way of achievement.Young actors were helped through dramatic schools; young men and women were assisted through college and to travel abroad.Among others Clemens paid the way of two colored students, one through a Southern institution and another through the Yale law school.
The mention of the name of Gerhardt in the preceding letter introduces the most important, or at least the most extensive, of these benefactions.The following letter gives the beginning of the story:
To W.D.Howells, in Boston:
Private and Confidential.
HARTFORD, Feb.21, 1881.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Well, here is our romance.
It happened in this way.One morning, a month ago--no, three weeks--Livy, and Clara Spaulding and I were at breakfast, at 10 A.M., and I was in an irritable mood, for the barber was up stairs waiting and his hot water getting cold, when the colored George returned from answering the bell and said: "There's a lady in the drawing-room wants to see you.""A book agent!" says I, with heat."I won't see her; I will die in my tracks, first."Then I got up with a soul full of rage, and went in there and bent scowling over that person, and began a succession of rude and raspy questions--and without even offering to sit down.