Twains Letters vol 4 1886-1900 | Page 5

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.
To Jane Clemens, in Keokuk:
ELMIRA, Aug. 7, '86. DEAR MA,--I heard that Molly and Orion and
Pamela had been sick, but I see by your letter that they are much better
now, or nearly well. When we visited you a month ago, it seemed to us
that your Keokuk weather was pretty hot; Jean and Clara sat up in bed
at Mrs. McElroy's and cried about it, and so did I; but I judge by your
letter that it has cooled down, now, so that a person is comparatively
comfortable, with his skin off. Well it did need cooling; I remember
that I burnt a hole in my shirt, there, with some ice cream that fell on it;
and Miss Jenkins told me they never used a stove, but cooked their
meals on a marble-topped table in the drawing-room, just with the
natural heat. If anybody else had told me, I would not have believed it.
I was told by the Bishop of Keokuk that he did not allow crying at
funerals, because it scalded the furniture. If Miss Jenkins had told me

that, I would have believed it. This reminds me that you speak of Dr.
Jenkins and his family as if they were strangers to me. Indeed they are
not. Don't you suppose I remember gratefully how tender the doctor
was with Jean when she hurt her arm, and how quickly he got the pain
out of the hurt, whereas I supposed it was going to last at least an hour?
No, I don't forget some things as easily as I do others.
Yes, it was pretty hot weather. Now here, when a person is going to die,
he is always in a sweat about where he is going to; but in Keokuk of
course they don't care, because they are fixed for everything. It has set
me reflecting, it has taught me a lesson. By and by, when my health
fails, I am going to put all my affairs in order, and bid good-bye to my
friends here, and kill all the people I don't like, and go out to Keokuk
and prepare for death.
They are all well in this family, and we all send love. Affly Your Son
SAM.
The ways of city officials and corporations are often past understanding,
and Mark Twain sometimes found it necessary to write picturesque
letters of protest. The following to a Hartford lighting company is a fair
example of these documents.
To a gas and electric-lighting company, in Hartford:
GENTLEMEN,--There are but two places in our whole street where
lights could be of any value, by any accident, and you have measured
and appointed your intervals so ingeniously as to leave each of those
places in the centre of a couple of hundred yards of solid darkness.
When I noticed that you were setting one of your lights in such a way
that I could almost see how to get into my gate at night, I suspected that
it was a piece of carelessness on the part of the workmen, and would be
corrected as soon as you should go around inspecting and find it out.