第208章

LETTERS, 1895-96, TO H.H.ROGERS AND OTHERS.FINISHING "JOAN OF ARC."THE TRIP AROUND THE WORLD.DEATH OF SUSY CLEMENSTo H.H.Rogers, in New York City:

[No date.]

DEAR MR.ROGERS,--Yours of Dec.21 has arrived, containing the circular to stockholders and I guess the Co.will really quit--there doesn't seem to be any other wise course.

There's one thing which makes it difficult for me to soberly realize that my ten year dream is actually dissolved; and that is, that it reveries my horoscope.The proverb says, "Born lucky, always lucky," and I am very superstitious.As a small boy I was notoriously lucky.It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a 2/3 drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, and was considered to be a cat in disguise.

When the "Pennsylvania" blew up and the telegraph reported my brother as fatally injured (with 60 others) but made no mention of me, my uncle said to my mother "It means that Sam was somewhere else, after being on that boat a year and a half--he was born lucky." Yes, I was somewhere else.

I am so superstitious that I have always been afraid to have business dealings with certain relatives and friends of mine because they were unlucky people.All my life I have stumbled upon lucky chances of large size, and whenever they were wasted it was because of my own stupidity and carelessness.And so I have felt entirely certain that that machine would turn up trumps eventually.It disappointed me lots of times, but Icouldn't shake off the confidence of a life-time in my luck.

Well, whatever I get out of the wreckage will be due to good luck--the good luck of getting you into the scheme--for, but for that, there wouldn't be any wreckage; it would be total loss.

I wish you had been in at the beginning.Then we should have had the good luck to step promptly ashore.

Miss Harrison has had a dream which promises me a large bank account, and I want her to go ahead and dream it twice more, so as to make the prediction sure to be fulfilled.

I've got a first rate subject for a book.It kept me awake all night, and I began it and completed it in my mind.The minute I finish Joan I will take it up.

Love and Happy New Year to you all.

Sincerely yours, S.L.CLEMENS.

This was about the end of the machine interests so far as Clemens was concerned.Paige succeeded in getting some new people interested, but nothing important happened, or that in any way affected Mark Twain.Characteristically he put the whole matter behind him and plunged into his work, facing comparative poverty and a burden of debts with a stout heart.The beginning of the new year found him really poorer in purse than he had ever been in his life, but certainly not crushed, or even discouraged--at least, not permanently--and never more industrious or capable.

To H.H.Rogers, in New York City:

169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, PARIS, Jan.23, '95.

DEAR MR.ROGERS,--After I wrote you, two or three days ago I thought Iwould make a holiday of the rest of the day--the second deliberate holiday since I had the gout.On the first holiday I wrote a tale of about 6,000 words, which was 3 days' work in one; and this time I did 8,000 before midnight.I got nothing out of that first holiday but the recreation of it, for I condemned the work after careful reading and some revision; but this time I fared better--I finished the Huck Finn tale that lies in your safe, and am satisfied with it.

The Bacheller syndicate (117 Tribune Building) want a story of 5,000words (lowest limit of their London agent) for $1,000 and offer to plank the check on delivery, and it was partly to meet that demand that I took that other holiday.So as I have no short story that suits me (and can't and shan't make promises), the best I can do is to offer the longer one which I finished on my second holiday--"Tom Sawyer, Detective."It makes 27 or 28,000 words, and is really written for grown folks, though I expect young folk to read it, too.It transfers to the banks of the Mississippi the incidents of a strange murder which was committed in Sweden in old times.

I'll refer applicants for a sight of the story to you or Miss Harrison.--[Secretary to Mr.Rogers.]

Yours sincerely, S.L.CLEMENS.

To H.H.Rogers, in New York City:

169 RUE DE L'UNIVERSITE, Apr.29, '95.

DEAR MR.ROGERS,--Your felicitous delightful letter of the 15th arrived three days ago, and brought great pleasure into the house.

There is one thing that weighs heavily on Mrs.Clemens and me.That is Brusnahan's money.If he is satisfied to have it invested in the Chicago enterprise, well and good; if not, we would like to have the money paid back to him.I will give him as many months to decide in as he pleases--let him name 6 or 10 or 12--and we will let the money stay where it is in your hands till the time is up.Will Miss Harrison tell him so? I mean if you approve.I would like him to have a good investment, but would meantime prefer to protect him against loss.

At 6 minutes past 7, yesterday evening, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

With the long strain gone, I am in a sort of physical collapse today, but it will be gone tomorrow.I judged that this end of the book would be hard work, and it turned out so.I have never done any work before that cost so much thinking and weighing and measuring and planning and cramming, or so much cautious and painstaking execution.For I wanted the whole Rouen trial in, if it could be got in in such a way that the reader's interest would not flag--in fact I wanted the reader's interest to increase; and so I stuck to it with that determination in view--with the result that I have left nothing out but unimportant repetitions.