LETTERS 1894.A WINTER IN NEW YORK.BUSINESS FAILURE.
END OF THE MACHINE
The beginning of the new year found Mark Twain sailing buoyantly on a tide of optimism.He believed that with H.H.Rogers as his financial pilot he could weather safely any storm or stress.He could divert himself, or rest, or work, and consider his business affairs with interest and amusement, instead of with haggard anxiety.He ran over to Hartford to see an amateur play; to Boston to give a charity reading; to Fair Haven to open the library which Mr.Rogers had established there; he attended gay dinners, receptions, and late studio parties, acquiring the name of the "Belle of New York." In the letters that follow we get the echo of some of these things.The Mrs.Rice mentioned in the next brief letter was the wife of Dr.Clarence C.Rice, who had introduced H.H.Rogers to Mark Twain.
To Mrs.Clemens, in Paris:
Jan.12, '94
Livy darling, I came down from Hartford yesterday with Kipling, and he and Hutton and I had the small smoking compartment to ourselves and found him at last at his ease, and not shy.He was very pleasant company indeed.He is to be in the city a week, and I wish I could invite him to dinner, but it won't do.I should be interrupted by business, of course.
The construction of a contract that will suit Paige's lawyer (not Paige)turns out to be very difficult.He is embarrassed by earlier advice to Paige, and hates to retire from it and stultify himself.The negotiations are being conducted, by means of tedious long telegrams and by talks over the long-distance telephone.We keep the wires loaded.
Dear me, dinner is ready.So Mrs.Rice says.
With worlds of love, SAML.
Clemens and Oliver Wendell Holmes had met and become friends soon after the publication of Innocents Abroad, in 1869.Now, twenty-five years later, we find a record of what without doubt was their last meeting.
It occurred at the home of Mrs.James T.Field.
To Mrs.Clemens, in Paris:
BOSTON, Jan.25, '94.
Livy darling, I am caught out worse this time than ever before, in the matter of letters.Tuesday morning I was smart enough to finish and mail my long letter to you before breakfast--for I was suspecting that I would not have another spare moment during the day.It turned out just so.
In a thoughtless moment I agreed to come up here and read for the poor.
I did not reflect that it would cost me three days.I could not get released.Yesterday I had myself called at 8 and ran out to Mr.Rogers's house at 9, and talked business until half past 10; then caught 11o'clock train and arrived here at 6; was shaven and dressed by 7 and ready for dinner here in Mrs.Field's charming house.
Dr.Oliver Wendell Holmes never goes out now (he is in his 84th year,)but he came out this time-said he wanted to "have a time" once more with me.
Mrs.Fields said Aldrich begged to come and went away crying because she wouldn't let him.She allowed only her family (Sarah Orne Jewett and sister) to be present, because much company would overtax Dr.Holmes.
Well, he was just delightful! He did as brilliant and beautiful talking (and listening) as ever he did in his life, I guess.Fields and Jewett said he hadn't been in such splendid form in years.He had ordered his carriage for 9.
The coachman sent in for him at 9; but he said, "Oh, nonsense!--leave glories and grandeurs like these? Tell him to go away and come in an hour!"At 10 he was called for again, and Mrs.Fields, getting uneasy, rose, but he wouldn't go--and so we rattled ahead the same as ever.Twice more Mrs.Fields rose, but he wouldn't go--and he didn't go till half past 10--an unwarrantable dissipation for him in these days.He was prodigiously complimentary about some of my books, and is having Pudd'nhead read to him.I told him you and I used the Autocrat as a courting book and marked it all through, and that you keep it in the sacred green box with the love letters, and it pleased him.
Good-bye, my dear darling, it is 15 minutes to dinner and I'm not dressed yet.I have a reception to-night and will be out very late at that place and at Irving's Theatre where I have a complimentary box.I wish you were all here.
SAML.
In the next letter we meet James J.Corbett--"Gentleman Jim," as he was sometimes called--the champion pugilist of that day.
The Howells incident so amusingly dramatized will perhaps be more appreciated if the reader remembers that Mark Twain himself had at intervals been a mind-healing enthusiast.Indeed, in spite of his strictures on Mrs.Eddy, his interest in the subject of mind-cure continued to the end of his life.
To Mrs.Clemens, in Paris:
Sunday, 9.30 a.m.
Livy dear, when we got out to the house last night, Mrs.Rogers, who is up and around, now, didn't want to go down stairs to dinner, but Mr.R.
persuaded her and we had a very good time indeed.By 8 o'clock we were down again and bought a fifteen-dollar box in the Madison Square Garden (Rogers bought it, not I,) then he went and fetched Dr.Rice while I(went) to the Players and picked up two artists--Reid and Simmons--and thus we filled 5 of the 6 seats.There was a vast multitude of people in the brilliant place.Stanford White came along presently and invited me to go to the World-Champion's dressing room, which I was very glad to do.
Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being the most perfectly and beautifully constructed human animal in the world.
I said:
"You have whipped Mitchell, and maybe you will whip Jackson in June--but you are not done, then.You will have to tackle me."He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in earnest:
"No--I am not going to meet you in the ring.It is not fair or right to require it.You might chance to knock me out, by no merit of your own, but by a purely accidental blow; and then my reputation would be gone and you would have a double one.You have got fame enough and you ought not to want to take mine away from me."Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank in San Francisco.
