The Boys' Life of Mark Twain [64]
seemed better from the moment of his arrival.
The acquaintance did not end there. For a month the author of "Rab" and the little Clemens family were together daily. Often they went with him to make his round of visits. He was always leaning out of the carriage to look at dogs. It was told of him that once when he suddenly put his head from a carriage window he dropped back with a disappointed look.
"Who was it?" asked his companion. "Some one you know?"
"No, a dog I don't know."
Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Scotland, and his story of "Rab" had won him a world-wide following. Children adored him. Little Susy and he were playmates, and he named her "Megalopis," a Greek term, suggested by her great, dark eyes.
Mark Twain kept his promise to lecture to a London audience. On the 13th of October, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, he gave "Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands." The house was packed. Clemens was not introduced. He appeared on the platform in evening dress, assuming the character of a manager, announcing a disappointment. Mr. Clemens, he said, had fully expected to be present. He paused, and loud murmurs arose from the audience. He lifted his hand and the noise subsided. Then he added, "I am happy to say that Mark Twain is present and will now give his lecture." The audience roared its approval.
He continued his lectures at Hanover Square through the week, and at no time in his own country had he won such a complete triumph. He was the talk of the streets. The papers were full of him. The "London Times" declared his lectures had only whetted the public appetite for more. His manager, George Dolby (formerly manager for Charles Dickens), urged him to remain and continue the course through the winter. Clemens finally agreed that he would take his family back to America and come back himself within the month. This plan he carried out. Returning to London, he lectured steadily for two months in the big Hanover Square rooms, giving his "Roughing It" address, and it was only toward the end that his audience showed any sign of diminishing. There is probably no other such a lecture triumph on record.
Mark Twain was at the pinnacle of his first glory: thirty-six, in full health, prosperous, sought by the world's greatest, hailed in the highest places almost as a king. Tom Sawyer's dreams of greatness had been all too modest. In its most dazzling moments his imagination had never led him so far.
XXXV.
BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER
It was at the end of January, 1874, when Mark Twain returned to America. His reception abroad had increased his prestige at home. Howells and Aldrich came over from Boston to tell him what a great man he had become- -to renew those Boston days of three years before--to talk and talk of all the things between the earth and sky. And Twichell came in, of course, and Warner, and no one took account of time, or hurried, or worried about anything at all.
"We had two such days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round," wrote Howells, long after, and he tells how he and Aldrich were so carried away with Clemens's success in subscription publication that on the way back to Boston they planned a book to sell in that way. It was to be called "Twelve Memorable Murders," and they had made two or three fortunes from it by the time they reached Boston.
"But the project ended there. We never killed a single soul," Howells once confessed to the writer of this memoir.
At Quarry Farm that summer Mark Twain began the writing of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He had been planning for some time to set down the story of those far-off days along the river-front at Hannibal, with John Briggs, Tom Blankenship, and the rest of that graceless band, and now in the cool luxury of a little study which Mrs. Crane had built for him on the hillside he set himself to spin the fabric of his youth. The study was a delightful place to work. It was octagonal in shape, with windows on all sides, something like a pilot-house. From any
The acquaintance did not end there. For a month the author of "Rab" and the little Clemens family were together daily. Often they went with him to make his round of visits. He was always leaning out of the carriage to look at dogs. It was told of him that once when he suddenly put his head from a carriage window he dropped back with a disappointed look.
"Who was it?" asked his companion. "Some one you know?"
"No, a dog I don't know."
Dr. John was beloved by everybody in Scotland, and his story of "Rab" had won him a world-wide following. Children adored him. Little Susy and he were playmates, and he named her "Megalopis," a Greek term, suggested by her great, dark eyes.
Mark Twain kept his promise to lecture to a London audience. On the 13th of October, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, he gave "Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands." The house was packed. Clemens was not introduced. He appeared on the platform in evening dress, assuming the character of a manager, announcing a disappointment. Mr. Clemens, he said, had fully expected to be present. He paused, and loud murmurs arose from the audience. He lifted his hand and the noise subsided. Then he added, "I am happy to say that Mark Twain is present and will now give his lecture." The audience roared its approval.
He continued his lectures at Hanover Square through the week, and at no time in his own country had he won such a complete triumph. He was the talk of the streets. The papers were full of him. The "London Times" declared his lectures had only whetted the public appetite for more. His manager, George Dolby (formerly manager for Charles Dickens), urged him to remain and continue the course through the winter. Clemens finally agreed that he would take his family back to America and come back himself within the month. This plan he carried out. Returning to London, he lectured steadily for two months in the big Hanover Square rooms, giving his "Roughing It" address, and it was only toward the end that his audience showed any sign of diminishing. There is probably no other such a lecture triumph on record.
Mark Twain was at the pinnacle of his first glory: thirty-six, in full health, prosperous, sought by the world's greatest, hailed in the highest places almost as a king. Tom Sawyer's dreams of greatness had been all too modest. In its most dazzling moments his imagination had never led him so far.
XXXV.
BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER
It was at the end of January, 1874, when Mark Twain returned to America. His reception abroad had increased his prestige at home. Howells and Aldrich came over from Boston to tell him what a great man he had become- -to renew those Boston days of three years before--to talk and talk of all the things between the earth and sky. And Twichell came in, of course, and Warner, and no one took account of time, or hurried, or worried about anything at all.
"We had two such days as the aging sun no longer shines on in his round," wrote Howells, long after, and he tells how he and Aldrich were so carried away with Clemens's success in subscription publication that on the way back to Boston they planned a book to sell in that way. It was to be called "Twelve Memorable Murders," and they had made two or three fortunes from it by the time they reached Boston.
"But the project ended there. We never killed a single soul," Howells once confessed to the writer of this memoir.
At Quarry Farm that summer Mark Twain began the writing of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." He had been planning for some time to set down the story of those far-off days along the river-front at Hannibal, with John Briggs, Tom Blankenship, and the rest of that graceless band, and now in the cool luxury of a little study which Mrs. Crane had built for him on the hillside he set himself to spin the fabric of his youth. The study was a delightful place to work. It was octagonal in shape, with windows on all sides, something like a pilot-house. From any