Letters Vol. 5 [43]
in Hartford about 30 years ago and which you said "publish--and ask Dean Stanley to furnish an introduction; he'll do it." ("Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.") It reads quite to suit me, without altering a word, now that it isn't to see print until I am dead.
To-morrow I mean to dictate a chapter which will get my heirs and assigns burnt alive if they venture to print it this side of 2006 A.D.--which I judge they won't. There'll be lots of such chapters if I live 3 or 4 years longer. The edition of A.D. 2006 will make a stir when it comes out. I shall be hovering around taking notice, along with other dead pals. You are invited. MARK.
His tendency to estimate the measure of the work he was doing, and had completed, must have clung to him from his old printer days.
The chapter which was to get his heirs and assigns burned alive was on the orthodox God, and there was more than one such chapter. In the next letter he refers to two exquisite poems by Howells, and the writer of these notes recalls his wonderful reading of them aloud. 'In Our Town' was a collection of short stories then recently issued by William Allen White. Howells had recommended them.
To W. D. Howells, in Maine:
21 FIFTH AVE., Tuesday Eve. DEAR HOWELLS,--It is lovely of you to say those beautiful things--I don't know how to thank you enough. But I love you, that I know.
I read "After the Wedding" aloud and we felt all the pain of it and the truth. It was very moving and very beautiful--would have been over- comingly moving, at times, but for the haltings and pauses compelled by the difficulties of MS--these were a protection, in that they furnished me time to brace up my voice, and get a new start. Jean wanted to keep the MS for another reading-aloud, and for "keeps," too, I suspected, but I said it would be safest to write you about it.
I like "In Our Town," particularly that Colonel, of the Lookout Mountain Oration, and very particularly pages 212-16. I wrote and told White so.
After "After the Wedding" I read "The Mother" aloud and sounded its human deeps with your deep-sea lead. I had not read it before, since it was first published.
I have been dictating some fearful things, for 4 successive mornings--for no eye but yours to see until I have been dead a century--if then. But I got them out of my system, where they had been festering for years--and that was the main thing. I feel better, now.
I came down today on business--from house to house in 12 ?hours, and expected to arrive dead, but am neither tired nor sleepy. Yours as always MARK.
To William Allen White, in Emporia, Kans.:
DUBLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, June 24, 1906. DEAR MR. WHITE,--Howells told me that "In Our Town" was a charming book, and indeed it is. All of it is delightful when read one's self, parts of it can score finely when subjected to the most exacting of tests--the reading aloud. Pages 197 and 216 are of that grade. I have tried them a couple of times on the family, and pages 212 and 216 are qualified to fetch any house of any country, caste or color, endowed with those riches which are denied to no nation on the planet--humor and feeling.
Talk again--the country is listening. Sincerely yours, S. L. CLEMENS.
Witter Bynner, the poet, was one of the editors of McClure's Magazine at this time, but was trying to muster the courage to give up routine work for verse-making and the possibility of poverty. Clemens was fond of Bynner and believed in his work. He did not advise him, however, to break away entirely from a salaried position--at least not immediately; but one day Bynner did so, and reported the
To-morrow I mean to dictate a chapter which will get my heirs and assigns burnt alive if they venture to print it this side of 2006 A.D.--which I judge they won't. There'll be lots of such chapters if I live 3 or 4 years longer. The edition of A.D. 2006 will make a stir when it comes out. I shall be hovering around taking notice, along with other dead pals. You are invited. MARK.
His tendency to estimate the measure of the work he was doing, and had completed, must have clung to him from his old printer days.
The chapter which was to get his heirs and assigns burned alive was on the orthodox God, and there was more than one such chapter. In the next letter he refers to two exquisite poems by Howells, and the writer of these notes recalls his wonderful reading of them aloud. 'In Our Town' was a collection of short stories then recently issued by William Allen White. Howells had recommended them.
To W. D. Howells, in Maine:
21 FIFTH AVE., Tuesday Eve. DEAR HOWELLS,--It is lovely of you to say those beautiful things--I don't know how to thank you enough. But I love you, that I know.
I read "After the Wedding" aloud and we felt all the pain of it and the truth. It was very moving and very beautiful--would have been over- comingly moving, at times, but for the haltings and pauses compelled by the difficulties of MS--these were a protection, in that they furnished me time to brace up my voice, and get a new start. Jean wanted to keep the MS for another reading-aloud, and for "keeps," too, I suspected, but I said it would be safest to write you about it.
I like "In Our Town," particularly that Colonel, of the Lookout Mountain Oration, and very particularly pages 212-16. I wrote and told White so.
After "After the Wedding" I read "The Mother" aloud and sounded its human deeps with your deep-sea lead. I had not read it before, since it was first published.
I have been dictating some fearful things, for 4 successive mornings--for no eye but yours to see until I have been dead a century--if then. But I got them out of my system, where they had been festering for years--and that was the main thing. I feel better, now.
I came down today on business--from house to house in 12 ?hours, and expected to arrive dead, but am neither tired nor sleepy. Yours as always MARK.
To William Allen White, in Emporia, Kans.:
DUBLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, June 24, 1906. DEAR MR. WHITE,--Howells told me that "In Our Town" was a charming book, and indeed it is. All of it is delightful when read one's self, parts of it can score finely when subjected to the most exacting of tests--the reading aloud. Pages 197 and 216 are of that grade. I have tried them a couple of times on the family, and pages 212 and 216 are qualified to fetch any house of any country, caste or color, endowed with those riches which are denied to no nation on the planet--humor and feeling.
Talk again--the country is listening. Sincerely yours, S. L. CLEMENS.
Witter Bynner, the poet, was one of the editors of McClure's Magazine at this time, but was trying to muster the courage to give up routine work for verse-making and the possibility of poverty. Clemens was fond of Bynner and believed in his work. He did not advise him, however, to break away entirely from a salaried position--at least not immediately; but one day Bynner did so, and reported the