THE GREAT YEAR OF 1885.CLEMENS AND CABLE.PUBLICATION OF "HUCK FINN."THE GRANT MEMOIRS.MARK TWAIN AT FIFTY
The year 1885 was in some respects the most important, certainly the most pleasantly exciting, in Mark Twain's life.It was the year in which he entered fully into the publishing business and launched one of the most spectacular of all publishing adventures, The Personal Memoirs of General U.S.Grant.Clemens had not intended to do general publishing when he arranged with Webster to become sales-agent for the Mississippi book, and later general agent for Huck Finn's adventures; he had intended only to handle his own books, because he was pretty thoroughly dissatisfied with other publishing arrangements.Even the Library of Humor, which Howells, with Clark, of the Courant, had put together for him, he left with Osgood until that publisher failed, during the spring of 1885.Certainly he never dreamed of undertaking anything of the proportions of the Grant book.
He had always believed that Grant could make a book.More than once, when they had met, he had urged the General to prepare his memoirs for publication.Howells, in his 'My Mark Twain', tells of going with Clemens to see Grant, then a member of the ill-fated firm of Grant and Ward, and how they lunched on beans, bacon and coffee brought in from a near-by restaurant.It was while they were eating this soldier fare that Clemens--very likely abetted by Howells--especially urged the great commander to prepare his memoirs.But Grant had become a financier, as he believed, and the prospect of literary earnings, however large, did not appeal to him.
Furthermore, he was convinced that he was without literary ability and that a book by him would prove a failure.
But then, by and by, came a failure more disastrous than anything he had foreseen--the downfall of his firm through the Napoleonic rascality of Ward.General Grant was utterly ruined; he was left without income and apparently without the means of earning one.It was the period when the great War Series was appeasing in the Century Magazine.General Grant, hard-pressed, was induced by the editors to prepare one or more articles, and, finding that he could write them, became interested in the idea of a book.It is unnecessary to repeat here the story of how the publication of this important work passed into the hands of Mark Twain; that is to say, the firm of Charles L.Webster & Co., the details having been fully given elsewhere.--[See Mark Twain: A Biography, chap.cliv.]--We will now return for the moment to other matters, as reported in order by the letters.Clemens and Cable had continued their reading-tour into Canada, and in February found themselves in Montreal.Here they were invited by the Toque Bleue Snow-shoe Club to join in one of their weekly excursions across Mt.Royal.They could not go, and the reasons given by Mark Twain are not without interest.The letter is to Mr.George Iles, author of Flame, Electricity, and the Camera, and many other useful works.
To George Iles, far the Toque Blew Snow-shoe Club, Montreal:
DETROIT, February 12, 1885.
Midnight, P.S.
MY DEAR ILES,--I got your other telegram a while ago, and answered it, explaining that I get only a couple of hours in the middle of the day for social life.I know it doesn't seem rational that a man should have to lie abed all day in order to be rested and equipped for talking an hour at night, and yet in my case and Cable's it is so.Unless I get a great deal of rest, a ghastly dulness settles down upon me on the platform, and turns my performance into work, and hard work, whereas it ought always to be pastime, recreation, solid enjoyment.Usually it is just this latter, but that is because I take my rest faithfully, and prepare myself to do my duty by my audience.
I am the obliged and appreciative servant of my brethren of the Snow-shoe Club, and nothing in the world would delight me more than to come to their house without naming time or terms on my own part--but you see how it is.My cast iron duty is to my audience--it leaves me no liberty and no option.
With kindest regards to the Club, and to you, I am Sincerely yours S.L.CLEMENS.
In the next letter we reach the end of the Clemens-Cable venture and get a characteristic summing up of Mark Twain's general attitude toward the companion of his travels.It must be read only in the clear realization of Mark Twain's attitude toward orthodoxy, and his habit of humor.Cable was as rigidly orthodox as Mark Twain was revolutionary.The two were never anything but the best of friends.
To W.D.Howells, in Boston:
PHILADA.Feb.27, '85.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--To-night in Baltimore, to-morrow afternoon and night in Washington, and my four-months platform campaign is ended at last.It has been a curious experience.It has taught me that Cable's gifts of mind are greater and higher than I had suspected.But--That "But" is pointing toward his religion.You will never, never know, never divine, guess, imagine, how loathsome a thing the Christian religion can be made until you come to know and study Cable daily and hourly.Mind you, I like him; he is pleasant company; I rage and swear at him sometimes, but we do not quarrel; we get along mighty happily together; but in him and his person I have learned to hate all religions.
He has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath-day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.
Nat Goodwin was on the train yesterday.He plays in Washington all the coming week.He is very anxious to get our Sellers play and play it under changed names.I said the only thing I could do would be to write to you.Well, I've done it.
Ys Ever MARK.