Letters Vol. 3 [54]
some way, else I cannot 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 I have 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.
I've got a swollen ear; so I take advantage of it to lie abed most of the day, and read and smoke and scribble and have a good time. Last evening Livy said with deep concern, "O dear, I believe an abscess is forming in your ear."
I responded as the poet would have done if he had had a cold in the head--
"Tis said that abscess conquers love, But O believe it not."
This made
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 I have 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.
I've got a swollen ear; so I take advantage of it to lie abed most of the day, and read and smoke and scribble and have a good time. Last evening Livy said with deep concern, "O dear, I believe an abscess is forming in your ear."
I responded as the poet would have done if he had had a cold in the head--
"Tis said that abscess conquers love, But O believe it not."
This made