Twains Letters vol 2 1867-1875 | Page 4

well and hope these few lines will find
you enjoying the same God's blessing.
The book is out, and is handsome. It is full of damnable errors of
grammar and deadly inconsistencies of spelling in the Frog sketch
because I was away and did not read the proofs; but be a friend and say
nothing about these things. When my hurry is over, I will send you an
autograph copy to pisen the children with.
I am to lecture in Cooper Institute next Monday night. Pray for me.
We sail for the Holy Land June 8. Try to write me (to this hotel,) and it
will be forwarded to Paris, where we remain 10 or 15 days.
Regards and best wishes to Mrs. Bret and the family. Truly Yr Friend
MARK.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:
WESTMINSTER HOTEL, May 1, 1867. DEAR FOLKS,--Don't
expect me to write for a while. My hands are full of business on
account of my lecture for the 6th inst., and everything looks shady, at
least, if not dark. I have got a good agent--but now after we have hired
Cooper Institute and gone to an expense in one way or another of $500,
it comes out that I have got to play against Speaker Colfax at Irving
Hall, Ristori, and also the double troupe of Japanese jugglers, the latter
opening at the great Academy of Music--and with all this against me I
have taken the largest house in New York and cannot back water. Let
her slide! If nobody else cares I don't.
I'll send the book soon. I am awfully hurried now, but not worried. Yrs.
SAM.
The Cooper Union lecture proved a failure, and a success. When it
became evident to Fuller that the venture was not going to pay, he sent
out a flood of complimentaries to the school-teachers of New York
City and the surrounding districts. No one seems to have declined them.
Clemens lectured to a jammed house and acquired much reputation.
Lecture proposals came from several directions, but he could not accept
them now. He wrote home that he was eighteen Alta letters behind and
had refused everything. Thos. Nast, the cartoonist, then in his first fame,
propped a joint tour, Clemens to lecture while he, Nast, would illustrate
with "lightning" sketches; but even this could not be considered now.
In a little while he would sail, and the days were overfull. A letter
written a week before he sailed is full of the hurry and strain of these

last days.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:
WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK, June 1, 1867. DEAR
FOLKS,--I know I ought to write oftener (just got your last,) and more
fully, but I cannot overcome my repugnance to telling what I am doing
or what I expect to do or propose to do. Then, what have I left to write
about? Manifestly nothing.
It isn't any use for me to talk about the voyage, because I can have no
faith in that voyage till the ship is under way. How do I know she will
ever sail? My passage is paid, and if the ship sails, I sail in her--but I
make no calculations, have bought no cigars, no sea-going clothing
--have made no preparation whatever--shall not pack my trunk till the
morning we sail. Yet my hands are full of what I am going to do the
day before we sail--and what isn't done that day will go undone.
All I do know or feel, is, that I am wild with impatience to move--move
--move! Half a dozen times I have wished I had sailed long ago in some
ship that wasn't going to keep me chained here to chafe for lagging
ages while she got ready to go. Curse the endless delays! They always
kill me--they make me neglect every duty and then I have a conscience
that tears me like a wild beast. I wish I never had to stop anywhere a
month. I do more mean things, the moment I get a chance to fold my
hands and sit down than ever I can get forgiveness for.
Yes, we are to meet at Mr. Beach's next Thursday night, and I suppose
we shall have to be gotten up regardless of expense, in swallow-tails,
white kids and everything en regle.
I am resigned to Rev. Mr. Hutchinson's or anybody else's supervision. I
don't mind it. I am fixed. I have got a splendid, immoral, tobacco-
smoking, wine-drinking, godless room-mate who is as good and true
and right-minded a man as ever lived--a man whose blameless conduct
and example will always be an eloquent sermon to all who shall come
within their influence. But send on the professional preachers--there are
none I