登陆注册
15685400000259

第259章

You say you "send with this" the story.Then it should be here but it isn't, when I send a thing with another thing, the other thing goes but the thing doesn't, I find it later--still on the premises.Will you look it up now and send it?

Aldrich was here half an hour ago, like a breeze from over the fields, with the fragrance still upon his spirit.I am tired of waiting for that man to get old.

Sincerely yours, S.L.C.

Mark Twain was in his seventieth year, old neither in mind nor body, but willing to take life more quietly, to refrain from travel and gay events.A sort of pioneers' reunion was to be held on the Pacific Coast, and a letter from Robert Fulton, of Reno, Nevada, invited Clemens to attend.He did not go, but he sent a letter that we may believe was the next best thing to those who heard it read.

To Robert Fulton, in Reno, Nevada:

IN THE MOUNTAINS, May 24, 1905.

DEAR MR.FULTON,--I remember, as if it were yesterday, that when Idisembarked from the overland stage in front of the Ormsby in Carson City in August, 1861, I was not expecting to be asked to come again.I was tired, discouraged, white with alkali dust, and did not know anybody; and if you had said then, "Cheer up, desolate stranger, don't be down-hearted--pass on, and come again in 1905," you cannot think how grateful I would have been and how gladly I would have closed the contract.

Although I was not expecting to be invited, I was watching out for it, and was hurt and disappointed when you started to ask me and changed it to, "How soon are you going away?"But you have made it all right, now, the wound is closed.And so I thank you sincerely for the invitation; and with you, all Reno, and if I were a few years younger I would accept it, and promptly.I would go.I would let somebody else do the oration, but, as for me, I would talk--just talk.I would renew my youth; and talk--and talk--and talk --and have the time of my life! I would march the unforgotten and unforgettable antiques by, and name their names, and give them reverent Hailand-farewell as they passed: Goodman, McCarthy, Gillis, Curry, Baldwin, Winters, Howard, Nye, Stewart; Neely Johnson, Hal Clayton, North, Root,--and my brother, upon whom be peace!--and then the desperadoes, who made life a joy and the "Slaughter-house" a precious possession: Sam Brown, Farmer Pete, Bill Mayfield, Six-fingered Jake, Jack Williams and the rest of the crimson discipleship--and so on and so on.Believe me, I would start a resurrection it would do you more good to look at than the next one will, if you go on the way you are doing now.

Those were the days! those old ones.They will come no more.Youth will come no more.They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there have been no others like them.It chokes me up to think of them.Would you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my white head.

Good-bye.I drink to you all.Have a good time--and take an old man's blessing.

MARK TWAIN.

A few days later he was writing to H.H.Bancroft, of San Francisco, who had invited him for a visit in event of his coming to the Coast.

Henry James had just been there for a week and it was hoped that Howells would soon follow.

To H.H.Bancroft, in San Francisco:

UP IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, May 27, 1905.

DEAR MR.BANCROFT,--I thank you sincerely for the tempting hospitalities which you offer me, but I have to deny myself, for my wandering days are over, and it is my desire and purpose to sit by the fire the rest of my remnant of life and indulge myself with the pleasure and repose of work --work uninterrupted and unmarred by duties or excursions.

A man who like me, is going to strike 70 on the 30th of next November has no business to be flitting around the way Howells does--that shameless old fictitious butter fly.(But if he comes, don't tell him I said it, for it would hurt him and I wouldn't brush a flake of powder from his wing for anything.I only say it in envy of his indestructible youth, anyway.Howells will be 88 in October.) With thanks again, Sincerely yours, S.L.C.

Clemens found that the air of the New Hampshire hills agreed with him and stimulated him to work.He began an entirely new version of The Mysterious Stranger, of which he already had a bulky and nearly finished manuscript, written in Vienna.He wrote several hundred pages of an extravaganza entitled, Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes, and then, having got his superabundant vitality reduced (it was likely to expend itself in these weird mental exploits), he settled down one day and wrote that really tender and beautiful idyl, Eve's Diary, which he had begun, or at least planned, the previous summer at Tyringham.In a letter to Mr.Frederick A.

Duneka, general manager of Harper & Brothers, he tells something of the manner of the story; also his revised opinion of Adam's Diary, written in '93, and originally published as a souvenir of Niagara Falls.

To Frederick A.Duneka, in New York:

DUBLIN, July 16, '05.

DEAR MR.DUNEKA,--I wrote Eve's Diary, she using Adam's Diary as her (unwitting and unconscious) text, of course, since to use any other text would have been an imbecility--then I took Adam's Diary and read it.It turned my stomach.It was not literature; yet it had been literature once--before I sold it to be degraded to an advertisement of the Buffalo Fair.I was going to write and ask you to melt the plates and put it out of print.

But this morning I examined it without temper, and saw that if Iabolished the advertisement it would be literature again.

So I have done it.I have struck out 700 words and inserted 5 MS pages of new matter (650 words), and now Adam's Diary is dam good--sixty times as good as it ever was before.

I believe it is as good as Eve's Diary now--no, it's not quite that good, I guess, but it is good enough to go in the same cover with Eve's.I'm sure of that.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 末日来临之际丶屌丝逆袭之时

    末日来临之际丶屌丝逆袭之时

    女神!屌丝?白日梦?屌丝逆袭日记。“这是真的吗?”“这是真的,这不是梦,我的滑板鞋...”男子的手机响了...
  • 最强兵王混都市

    最强兵王混都市

    林征是一个退役的军旅之王,回到都市半年时间,成天无所事事,以逛街看美女为乐。今天看到一个绝对高分的极品,林征自然忍耐不住,尾随在对方身后,想要细细品味,却不想阴差阳错之间被美女“暴打”……
  • 泡妞百科全书

    泡妞百科全书

    云锋的人生本就是一部巨著。当别人还在为了泡妞而大伤脑筋之时,云锋的口号已经是:“关门,放美女!”以至于后来他的人生被编成了一部流传百世的书。书名叫《泡妞百科全书》。数不尽的爆笑和巧合,且看叶浩如何游刃有余的左右逢源,揽尽各色美女,败尽各路强敌。
  • 课堂教学的智慧与创新

    课堂教学的智慧与创新

    本书是“中小学教师教学丛书”中的第三十五册,本书聚焦课堂教学,聚焦创新,用浓笔为我们诠释教师如何运用自己的智慧,如何独辟蹊径打造优秀的课堂教学。其中的课堂创新、提升学生创造力的方法全都融会于本书之中,是指引教师完成教学创新和提升的智慧书。
  • 汁吃诗

    汁吃诗

    沈宏非、冯唐、桑格格、野夫、沈浩波、大董、苍井空、等等纷纷出场,汁水四溢的高潮,吃喝畅快的江湖,诗句横飞的隐秘。以吃安身,以诗立命,写江湖饭局,品人生百味,这里有从饭桌上斜睨出去的真滋味。此书可以下酒。83家心水餐厅良心推荐;65道私藏美味科普曝光;36位江湖食客八卦爆料;33首压箱诗歌掏心掏肺。你可游心骇耳,亦可按图索骥,这真不是一本美食书,满是对美食的敬意。
  • 凤仪公主

    凤仪公主

    现代穿越而来的善良女孩晓晓遇上古代心爱的男人,却在爱中三番两次的被伤,当所爱之人为了最高权力要杀她之时心已破碎,涅槃重生的凤仪将爱抛弃只为权利,灭其余两国重整天龙国,但是权利能够代替失去的情意吗?从现代平凡女孩到公主再到太公主,她如何能够在男人的战场指挥若定统一天下?
  • 重生之妖妃倾城

    重生之妖妃倾城

    举天同庆,歌舞升平,本是皇后的慕容晓晓没想到的是换来庶妹和丈夫的背叛。"若有来世,我要你们不得好死"。重生一世,携怨重生,她化作易瑾柔独霸后宫,誓死要他们付出代价。
  • 林梧桐

    林梧桐

    她只想要有一个家,可惜,那个人死了!既然预言说她会统一天下,那么她何不顺其道而行!可是到最后她才发现,天下,不过是一个笑话!
  • 权倾天下:废材九小姐

    权倾天下:废材九小姐

    权倾天下:废材九小姐你应该活九十八岁,等等,你才十八岁啊!谁让你下地狱的!我要用我的美色和权利来征服,额额,等等!天下有点难,那就征服男人吧!穿越后的废材九小姐如是说道!
  • 白色眷恋

    白色眷恋

    因为不满皇马6比2的比分,中国青年律师沈星怒砸啤酒瓶,结果电光火石间,他穿越成了佛罗伦蒂诺的儿子,且看来自09年的小伙子如何玩转03年的欧洲足坛