Twains Letters vol 3 1876-1885 | Page 4

association of most of
the literary talent of that city, and it included a number of very
distinguished members. The writers, the editors, the lawyers, and the
ministers of the gospel who composed it were more often than not men
of national or international distinction. There was but one paper at each
meeting, and it was likely to be a paper that would later find its way
into some magazine.
Naturally Mark Twain was one of its favorite members, and his
contributions never failed to arouse interest and discussion. A "Mark
Twain night" brought out every member. In the next letter we find the
first mention of one of his most memorable contributions--a story of
one of life's moral aspects. The tale, now included in his collected
works, is, for some reason, little read to-day; yet the curious allegory,
so vivid in its seeming reality, is well worth consideration.
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, Jan. 11, '76. MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Indeed we haven't
forgotten the Howellses, nor scored up a grudge of any kind against
them; but the fact is I was under the doctor's hands for four weeks on a
stretch and have been disabled from working for a week or so beside. I
thought I was well, about ten days ago, so I sent for a short-hand writer
and dictated answers to a bushel or so of letters that had been
accumulating during my illness. Getting everything shipshape and
cleared up, I went to work next day upon an Atlantic article, which
ought to be worth $20 per page (which is the price they usually pay for
my work, I believe) for although it is only 70 pages MS (less than two
days work, counting by bulk,) I have spent 3 more days trimming,
altering and working at it. I shall put in one more day's polishing on it,
and then read it before our Club, which is to meet at our house Monday
evening, the 24th inst. I think it will bring out considerable discussion
among the gentlemen of the Club--though the title of the article will not
give them much notion of what is to follow,--this title being "The Facts
Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut"--which
reminds me that today's Tribune says there will be a startling article in
the current Atlantic, in which a being which is tangible bud invisible
will figure-exactly the case with the sketch of mine which I am talking
about! However, mine can lie unpublished a year or two as well as
not--though I wish that contributor of yours had not interfered with his

coincidence of heroes.
But what I am coming at, is this: won't you and Mrs. Howells come
down Saturday the 22nd and remain to the Club on Monday night? We
always have a rattling good time at the Club and we do want you to
come, ever so much. Will you? Now say you will. Mrs. Clemens and I
are persuading ourselves that you twain will come.
My volume of sketches is doing very well, considering the times;
received my quarterly statement today from Bliss, by which I perceive
that 20,000 copies have been sold--or rather, 20,000 had been sold 3
weeks ago; a lot more, by this time, no doubt.
I am on the sick list again--and was, day before yesterday--but on the
whole I am getting along. Yrs ever MARK
Howells wrote that he could not come down to the club meeting,
adding that sickness was "quite out of character" for Mark Twain, and
hardly fair on a man who had made so many other people feel well. He
closed by urging that Bliss "hurry out" 'Tom Sawyer.' "That boy is
going to make a prodigious hit." Clemens answered:
To W. D. Howells, in Boston.
HARTFORD, Jan. 18, '76. MY DEAR HOWELLS,--Thanks, and ever
so many, for the good opinion of 'Tom Sawyer.' Williams has made
about 300 rattling pictures for it--some of them very dainty. Poor devil,
what a genius he has and how he does murder it with rum. He takes a
book of mine, and without suggestion from anybody builds no end of
pictures just from his reading of it.
There was never a man in the world so grateful to another as I was to
you day before yesterday, when I sat down (in still rather wretched
health) to set myself to the dreary and hateful task of making final
revision of Tom Sawyer, and discovered, upon opening the package of
MS that your pencil marks were scattered all along. This was splendid,
and swept away all labor. Instead of reading the MS, I simply hunted
out the pencil marks and made the emendations which they suggested. I
reduced the boy battle to a curt paragraph; I finally concluded