Joe Twichell preached morning and evening here last Sunday; took midnight train for Boston; got an early breakfast and started by rail at 7.30A.M.for Concord; swelled around there until 1 P.M., seeing everything; then traveled on top of a train to Lexington; saw everything there; traveled on top of a train to Boston, (with hundreds in company)deluged with dust, smoke and cinders; yelled and hurrahed all the way like a schoolboy; lay flat down to dodge numerous bridges, and sailed into the depot, howling with excitement and as black as a chimney-sweep;got to Young's Hotel at 7 P.M.; sat down in reading-room and immediately fell asleep; was promptly awakened by a porter who supposed he was drunk;wandered around an hour and a half; then took 9 P.M.train, sat down in smoking car and remembered nothing more until awakened by conductor as the train came into Hartford at 1.30 A.M.Thinks he had simply a glorious time--and wouldn't have missed the Centennial for the world.
He would have run out to see us a moment at Cambridge, but was too dirty.
I wouldn't have wanted him there--his appalling energy would have been an insufferable reproach to mild adventurers like you and me.
Well, he is welcome to the good time he had--I had a deal better one.
My narrative has made Mrs.Clemens wish she could have been there.--When I think over what a splendid good sociable time I had in your house Ifeel ever so thankful to the wise providence that thwarted our several ably-planned and ingenious attempts to get to Lexington.I am coming again before long, and then she shall be of the party.
Now you said that you and Mrs.Howells could run down here nearly any Saturday.Very well then, let us call it next Saturday, for a "starter."Can you do that? By that time it will really be spring and you won't freeze.The birds are already out; a small one paid us a visit yesterday.We entertained it and let it go again, Susie protesting.
The spring laziness is already upon me--insomuch that the spirit begins to move me to cease from Mississippi articles and everything else and give myself over to idleness until we go to New Orleans.I have one article already finished, but somehow it doesn't seem as proper a chapter to close with as the one already in your hands.I hope to get in a mood and rattle off a good one to finish with--but just now all my moods are lazy ones.
Winnie's literature sings through me yet! Surely that child has one of these "futures" before her.
Now try to come--will you?
With the warmest regards of the two of us--
Yrs ever, S.L.CLEMENS.
Mrs.Clemens sent a note to Mrs.Howells, which will serve as a pendant to the foregoing.
From Mrs.Clemens to Mrs.Howells, in Boston:
MY DEAR MRS.HOWELLS,--Don't dream for one instant that my not getting a letter from you kept me from Boston.I am too anxious to go to let such a thing as that keep me.
Mr.Clemens did have such a good time with you and Mr.Howells.
He evidently has no regret that he did not get to the Centennial.I was driven nearly distracted by his long account of Mr.Howells and his wanderings.I would keep asking if they ever got there, he would never answer but made me listen to a very minute account of everything that they did.At last I found them back where they started from.
If you find misspelled words in this note, you will remember my infirmity and not hold me responsible.
Affectionately yours, LIVY L.CLEMENS.
In spite of his success with the Sellers play and his itch to follow it up, Mark Twain realized what he believed to be his literary limitations.
All his life he was inclined to consider himself wanting in the finer gifts of character-shading and delicate portrayal.Remembering Huck Finn, and the rare presentation of Joan of Arc, we may not altogether agree with him.Certainly, he was never qualified to delineate those fine artificialities of life which we are likely to associate with culture, and perhaps it was something of this sort that caused the hesitation confessed in the letter that follows.Whether the plan suggested interested Howells or not we do not know.In later years Howells wrote a novel called The Story of a Play; this may have been its beginning.
To W.D.Howells, in Boston:
FARMINGTON AVENUE, HARTFORD, Apl.26, 1875.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--An actor named D.H.Harkins has been here to ask me to put upon paper a 5-act play which he has been mapping out in his mind for 3 or 4 years.He sat down and told me his plot all through, in a clear, bright way, and I was a deal taken with it; but it is a line of characters whose fine shading and artistic development requires an abler hand than mine; so I easily perceived that I must not make the attempt.
But I liked the man, and thought there was a good deal of stuff in him;and therefore I wanted his play to be written, and by a capable hand, too.So I suggested you, and said I would write and see if you would be willing to undertake it.If you like the idea, he will call upon you in the course of two or three weeks and describe his plot and his characters.Then if it doesn't strike you favorably, of course you can simply decline; but it seems to me well worth while that you should hear what he has to say.You could also "average" him while he talks, and judge whether he could play your priest--though I doubt if any man can do that justice.
Shan't I write him and say he may call? If you wish to communicate directly with him instead, his address is "Larchmont Manor, Westchester Co., N.Y."Do you know, the chill of that 19th of April seems to be in my bones yet?
I am inert and drowsy all the time.That was villainous weather for a couple of wandering children to be out in.
Ys ever MARK.
The sinister typewriter did not find its way to Howells for nearly a year.Meantime, Mark Twain had refused to allow the manufacturers to advertise his ownership.He wrote to them:
HARTFORD, March 19, 1875.