第51章
The book, however, was not begun immediately.Bliss was in poor health and final arrangements were delayed; it was not until late in January that Clemens went to Hartford and concluded the arrangement.
Meantime, fate had disclosed another matter of even greater importance; we get the first hint of it in the following letter, though to him its beginning had been earlier--on a day in the blue harbor of Smyrna, when young Charles Langdon, a fellow-passenger on the Quaker City, had shown to Mark Twain a miniature of young Langdon's sister at home:
To Mrs.Jane Clemens and Mrs.Moffett, in St.Louis:
224 F.STREET, WASH, Jan.8, 1868.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--And so the old Major has been there, has he?
I would like mighty well to see him.I was a sort of benefactor to him once.I helped to snatch him out when he was about to ride into a Mohammedan Mosque in that queer old Moorish town of Tangier, in Africa.
If he had got in, the Moors would have knocked his venerable old head off, for his temerity.
I have just arrived from New York-been there ever since Christmas staying at the house of Dan Slote my Quaker City room-mate, and having a splendid time.Charley Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, Dan and I, (all Quaker City night-hawks,) had a blow-out at Dan's' house and a lively talk over old times.We went through the Holy Land together, and I just laughed till my sides ached, at some of our reminiscences.It was the unholiest gang that ever cavorted through Palestine, but those are the best boys in the world.We needed Moulton badly.I started to make calls, New Year's Day, but I anchored for the day at the first house I came to--Charlie Langdon's sister was there (beautiful girl,) and Miss Alice Hooker, another beautiful girl, a niece of Henry Ward Beecher's.We sent the old folks home early, with instructions not to send the carriage till midnight, and then I just staid there and worried the life out of those girls.I am going to spend a few days with the Langdon's in Elmira, New York, as soon as I get time, and a few days at Mrs.Hooker's in Hartford, Conn., shortly.
Henry Ward Beecher sent for me last Sunday to come over and dine (he lives in Brooklyn, you know,) and I went.Harriet Beecher Stowe was there, and Mrs.and Miss Beecher, Mrs.Hooker and my old Quaker City favorite, Emma Beach.
We had a very gay time, if it was Sunday.I expect I told more lies than I have told before in a month.
I went back by invitation, after the evening service, and finished the blow-out, and then staid all night at Mr.Beach's.Henry Ward is a brick.
I found out at 10 o'clock, last night, that I was to lecture tomorrow evening and so you must be aware that I have been working like sin all night to get a lecture written.I have finished it, I call it "Frozen Truth." It is a little top-heavy, though, because there is more truth in the title than there is in the lecture.
But thunder, I mustn't sit here writing all day, with so much business before me.
Good by, and kind regards to all.
Yrs affy SAM L.CLEMENS.
Jack Van Nostrand of this letter is "Jack" of the Innocents.Emma Beach was the daughter of Moses S.Beach, of the 'New York Sun.'
Later she became the wife of the well-known painter, Abbot H.
Thayer.
We do not hear of Miss Langdon again in the letters of that time, but it was not because she was absent from his thoughts.He had first seen her with her father and brother at the old St.Nicholas Hotel, on lower Broadway, where, soon after the arrival of the Quaker City in New York, he had been invited to dine.Long afterward he said: "It is forty years ago; from that day to this she has never been out of my mind."From his next letter we learn of the lecture which apparently was delivered in Washington.
To Mrs.Jane Clemens and Mrs.Moffett, in St.Louis:
WASH.Jan.9, 1868.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,-- That infernal lecture is over, thank Heaven!
It came near being a villainous failure.It was not advertised at all.
The manager was taken sick yesterday, and the man who was sent to tell me, never got to me till afternoon today.There was the dickens to pay.
It was too late to do anything--too late to stop the lecture.I scared up a door-keeper, and was ready at the proper time, and by pure good luck a tolerably good house assembled and I was saved! I hardly knew what Iwas going to talk about, but it went off in splendid style.I was to have preached again Saturday night, but I won't--I can't get along without a manager.
I have been in New York ever since Christmas, you know, and now I shall have to work like sin to catch up my correspondence.
And I have got to get up that book, too.Cut my letters out of the Alta's and send them to me in an envelop.Some, here, that are not mailed yet, I shall have to copy, I suppose.
I have got a thousand things to do, and am not doing any of them.I feel perfectly savage.
Good bye Yrs aff SAM.
On the whole, matters were going well with him.His next letter is full of his success--overflowing with the boyish radiance which he never quite outgrew.
To Mrs.Jane Clemens and Mrs.Moffett, in St.Louis:
HARTFORD, CONN.Jan.24-68.
DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--This is a good week for me.I stopped in the Herald office as I came through New York, to see the boys on the staff, and young James Gordon Bennett asked me to write twice a week, impersonally, for the Herald, and said if I would I might have full swing, and (write) about anybody and everybody I wanted to.I said Imust have the very fullest possible swing, and he said "all right."I said "It's a contract--" and that settled that matter.
I'll make it a point to write one letter a week, any-how.
But the best thing that has happened was here.This great American Publishing Company kept on trying to bargain with me for a book till Ithought I would cut the matter short by coming up for a talk.I met Rev.