第158章

LETTERS, 1886-87.JANE CLEMENS'S ROMANCE.UNMAILED LETTERS, ETC.

When Clemens had been platforming with Cable and returned to Hartford for his Christmas vacation, the Warner and Clemens families had joined in preparing for him a surprise performance of The Prince and the Pauper.The Clemens household was always given to theatricals, and it was about this time that scenery and a stage were prepared--mainly by the sculptor Gerhardt--for these home performances, after which productions of The Prince and the Pauper were given with considerable regularity to audiences consisting of parents and invited friends.The subject is a fascinating one, but it has been dwelt upon elsewhere.--[In Mark Twain: A Biography, chaps.cliff and clx.]-- We get a glimpse of one of these occasions as well as of Mark Twain's financial progress in the next brief note.

To W.D.Howells; in Boston:

Jan.3, '86.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- The date set for the Prince and Pauper play is ten days hence--Jan.13.I hope you and Pilla can take a train that arrives here during the day; the one that leaves Boston toward the end of the afternoon would be a trifle late; the performance would have already begun when you reached the house.

I'm out of the woods.On the last day of the year I had paid out $182,000 on the Grant book and it was totally free from debt.

Yrs ever MARK.

Mark Twain's mother was a woman of sturdy character and with a keen sense of humor and tender sympathies.Her husband, John Marshall Clemens, had been a man of high moral character, honored by all who knew him, respected and apparently loved by his wife.No one would ever have supposed that during all her years of marriage, and almost to her death, she carried a secret romance that would only be told at last in the weary disappointment of old age.It is a curious story, and it came to light in this curious way:

To W.D.Howells, in Boston:

HARTFORD, May 19, '86.

MY DEAR HOWELLS,--.....Here's a secret.A most curious and pathetic romance, which has just come to light.Read these things, but don't mention them.Last fall, my old mother--then 82--took a notion to attend a convention of old settlers of the Mississippi Valley in an Iowa town.

My brother's wife was astonished; and represented to her the hardships and fatigues of such a trip, and said my mother might possibly not even survive them; and said there could be no possible interest for her in such a meeting and such a crowd.But my mother insisted, and persisted;and finally gained her point.They started; and all the way my mother was young again with excitement, interest, eagerness, anticipation.They reached the town and the hotel.My mother strode with the same eagerness in her eye and her step, to the counter, and said:

"Is Dr.Barrett of St.Louis, here?"

"No.He was here, but he returned to St.Louis this morning.""Will he come again?"

"No."

My mother turned away, the fire all gone from her, and said, " Let us go home."They went straight back to Keokuk.My mother sat silent and thinking for many days--a thing which had never happened before.Then one day she said:

"I will tell you a secret.When I was eighteen, a young medical student named Barrett lived in Columbia (Ky.) eighteen miles away; and he used to ride over to see me.This continued for some time.I loved him with my whole heart, and I knew that he felt the same toward me, though no words had been spoken.He was too bashful to speak--he could not do it.

Everybody supposed we were engaged--took it for granted we were--but we were not.By and by there was to be a party in a neighboring town, and he wrote my uncle telling him his feelings, and asking him to drive me over in his buggy and let him (Barrett) drive me back, so that he might have that opportunity to propose.My uncle should have done as he was asked, without explaining anything to me; but instead, he read me the letter; and then, of course, I could not go--and did not.He (Barrett)left the country presently, and I, to stop the clacking tongues, and to show him that I did not care, married, in a pet.In all these sixty-four years I have not seen him since.I saw in a paper that he was going to attend that Old Settlers' Convention.Only three hours before we reached that hotel, he had been standing there!"Since then, her memory is wholly faded out and gone; and now she writes letters to the school-mates who had been dead forty years, and wonders why they neglect her and do not answer.

Think of her carrying that pathetic burden in her old heart sixty-four years, and no human being ever suspecting it!

Yrs ever, MARK.

We do not get the idea from this letter that those two long ago sweethearts quarreled, but Mark Twain once spoke of their having done so, and there may have been a disagreement, assuming that there was a subsequent meeting.It does not matter, now.In speaking of it, Mark Twain once said: "It is as pathetic a romance as any that has crossed the field of my personal experience in a long lifetime." --[When Mark Twain:

A Biography was written this letter had not come to light, and the matter was stated there in accordance with Mark Twain's latest memory of it.]

Howells wrote: "After all, how poor and hackneyed all the inventions are compared with the simple and stately facts.Who could have imagined such a heart-break as that? Yet it went along with the fulfillment of everyday duty and made no more noise than a grave under foot.I doubt if fiction will ever get the knack of such things."Jane Clemens now lived with her son Orion and his wife, in Keokuk, where she was more contented than elsewhere.In these later days her memory had become erratic, her realization of events about her uncertain, but there were times when she was quite her former self, remembering clearly and talking with her old-time gaiety of spirit.Mark Twain frequently sent her playful letters to amuse her, letters full of such boyish gaiety as had amused her long years before.The one that follows is a fair example.It was written after a visit which Clemens and his family had paid to Keokuk.