第108章

LETTERS FROM EUROPE, 1878-79.TRAMPING WITH TWICHELL.WRITING A NEWTRAVEL BOOK.LIFE IN MUNICH

Whether the unhappy occurrence at the Whittier dinner had anything to do with Mark Twain's resolve to spend a year or two in Europe cannot be known now.There were other good reasons for going, one in particular being a demand for another book of travel.It was also true, as he explains in a letter to his mother, that his days were full of annoyances, making it difficult for him to work.He had a tendency to invest money in almost any glittering enterprise that came along, and at this time he was involved in the promotion of a variety of patent rights that brought him no return other than assessment and vexation.

Clemens's mother was by this time living with her son Onion and his wife, in Iowa.

To Mrs.Jane Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:

HARTFORD, Feb.17, 1878

MY DEAR MOTHER,--I suppose I am the worst correspondent in the whole world; and yet I grow worse and worse all the time.My conscience blisters me for not writing you, but it has ceased to abuse me for not writing other folks.

Life has come to be a very serious matter with me.I have a badgered, harassed feeling, a good part of my time.It comes mainly of business responsibilities and annoyances, and the persecution of kindly letters from well meaning strangers--to whom I must be rudely silent or else put in the biggest half of my time bothering over answers.There are other things also that help to consume my time and defeat my projects.Well, the consequence is, I cannot write a book at home.This cuts my income down.Therefore, I have about made up my mind to take my tribe and fly to some little corner of Europe and budge no more until I shall have completed one of the half dozen books that lie begun, up stairs.Please say nothing about this at present.

We propose to sail the 11th of April.I shall go to Fredonia to meet you, but it will not be well for Livy to make that trip I am afraid.

However, we shall see.I will hope she can go.

Mr.Twichell has just come in, so I must go to him.We are all well, and send love to you all.

Affly, SAM.

He was writing few letters at this time, and doing but little work.

There were always many social events during the winter, and what with his European plans and a diligent study of the German language, which the entire family undertook, his days and evenings were full enough.Howells wrote protesting against the European travel and berating him for his silence:

"I never was in Berlin and don't know any family hotel there.

I should be glad I didn't, if it would keep you from going.You deserve to put up at the Sign of the Savage in Vienna.Really, it's a great blow to me to hear of that prospected sojourn.It's a shame.I must see you, somehow, before you go.I'm in dreadfully low spirits about it.

"I was afraid your silence meant something wicked."Clemens replied promptly, urging a visit to Hartford, adding a postscript for Mrs.Howells, characteristic enough to warrant preservation.

P.S.to Mrs.Howells, in Boston:

Feb.'78.

DEAR MRS.HOWELLS.Mrs.Clemens wrote you a letter, and handed it to me half an hour ago, while I was folding mine to Mr.Howells.I laid that letter on this table before me while I added the paragraph about R,'s application.Since then I have been hunting and swearing, and swearing and hunting, but I can't find a sign of that letter.It is the most astonishing disappearance I ever heard of.Mrs.Clemens has gone off driving--so I will have to try and give you an idea of her communication from memory.Mainly it consisted of an urgent desire that you come to see us next week, if you can possibly manage it, for that will be a reposeful time, the turmoil of breaking up beginning the week after.She wants you to tell her about Italy, and advise her in that connection, if you will.Then she spoke of her plans--hers, mind you, for I never have anything quite so definite as a plan.She proposes to stop a fortnight in (confound the place, I've forgotten what it was,) then go and live in Dresden till sometime in the summer; then retire to Switzerland for the hottest season, then stay a while in Venice and put in the winter in Munich.This program subject to modifications according to circumstances.She said something about some little by-trips here and there, but they didn't stick in my memory because the idea didn't charm me.

(They have just telephoned me from the Courant office that Bayard Taylor and family have taken rooms in our ship, the Holsatia, for the 11th April.)Do come, if you possibly can!--and remember and don't forget to avoid letting Mrs.Clemens find out I lost her letter.Just answer her the same as if you had got it.

Sincerely yours S.L.CLEMENS.

The Howellses came, as invited, for a final reunion before the breaking up.This was in the early half of March; the Clemenses were to sail on the 11th of the following month.

Orion Clemens, meantime, had conceived a new literary idea and was piling in his MS.as fast as possible to get his brother's judgment on it before the sailing-date.It was not a very good time to send MS., but Mark Twain seems to have read it and given it some consideration."The Journey in Heaven," of his own, which he mentions, was the story published so many years later under the title of "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven." He had began it in 1868, on his voyage to San Francisco, it having been suggested by conversations with Capt.Ned Wakeman, of one of the Pacific steamers.Wakeman also appears in 'Roughing It,' Chap.L, as Capt.

Ned Blakely, and again in one of the "Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion," as "Captain Hurricane Jones."To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk:

HARTFORD, Mch.23, 1878.

MY DEAR BRO.,--Every man must learn his trade--not pick it up.God requires that he learn it by slow and painful processes.The apprentice-hand, in black-smithing, in medicine, in literature, in everything, is a thing that can't be hidden.It always shows.