Again, from Villeneuve, on lake Geneva, Howells wrote urging him this time to spend the winter with them in Florence, where they would write their great American Comedy of 'Orme's Motor,' "which is to enrich us beyond the dreams of avarice....We could have a lot of fun writing it, and you could go home with some of the good old Etruscan malaria in your bones, instead of the wretched pinch-beck Hartford article that you are suffering from now....it's a great opportunity for you.Besides, nobody over there likes you half as well as I do."It should be added that 'Orme's Motor' was the provisional title that Clemens and Howells had selected for their comedy, which was to be built, in some measure, at least, around the character, or rather from the peculiarities, of Orion Clemens.The Cable mentioned in Mark Twain's reply is, of course, George W.Cable, who only a little while before had come up from New Orleans to conquer the North with his wonderful tales and readings.
To W.D.Howells, in Switzerland:
HARTFORD, Nov.4th, 1882.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,-- Yes, it would be profitable for me to do that, because with your society to help me, I should swiftly finish this now apparently interminable book.But I cannot come, because I am not Boss here, and nothing but dynamite can move Mrs.Clemens away from home in the winter season.
I never had such a fight over a book in my life before.And the foolishest part of the whole business is, that I started Osgood to editing it before I had finished writing it.As a consequence, large areas of it are condemned here and there and yonder, and I have the burden of these unfilled gaps harassing me and the thought of the broken continuity of the work, while I am at the same time trying to build the last quarter of the book.However, at last I have said with sufficient positiveness that I will finish the book at no particular date; that Iwill not hurry it; that I will not hurry myself; that I will take things easy and comfortably, write when I choose to write, leave it alone when Iso prefer.The printers must wait, the artists, the canvassers, and all the rest.I have got everything at a dead standstill, and that is where it ought to be, and that is where it must remain; to follow any other policy would be to make the book worse than it already is.I ought to have finished it before showing to anybody, and then sent it across the ocean to you to be edited, as usual; for you seem to be a great many shades happier than you deserve to be, and if I had thought of this thing earlier, I would have acted upon it and taken the tuck somewhat out of your joyousness.
In the same mail with your letter, arrived the enclosed from Orme the motor man.You will observe that he has an office.I will explain that this is a law office and I think it probably does him as much good to have a law office without anything to do in it, as it would another man to have one with an active business attached.You see he is on the electric light lay now.Going to light the city and allow me to take all the stock if I want to.And he will manage it free of charge.It never would occur to this simple soul how much less costly it would be to me, to hire him on a good salary not to manage it.Do you observe the same old eagerness, the same old hurry, springing from the fear that if he does not move with the utmost swiftness, that colossal opportunity will escape him? Now just fancy this same frantic plunging after vast opportunities, going on week after week with this same man, during fifty entire years, and he has not yet learned, in the slightest degree, that there isn't any occasion to hurry; that his vast opportunity will always wait; and that whether it waits or flies, he certainly will never catch it.This immortal hopefulness, fortified by its immortal and unteachable misjudgment, is the immortal feature of this character, for a play; and we will write that play.We should be fools else.That staccato postscript reads as if some new and mighty business were imminent, for it is slung on the paper telegraphically, all the small words left out.
I am afraid something newer and bigger than the electric light is swinging across his orbit.Save this letter for an inspiration.I have got a hundred more.
Cable has been here, creating worshipers on all hands.He is a marvelous talker on a deep subject.I do not see how even Spencer could unwind a thought more smoothly or orderly, and do it in a cleaner, clearer, crisper English.He astounded Twichell with his faculty.You know when it comes down to moral honesty, limpid innocence, and utterly blemishless piety, the Apostles were mere policemen to Cable; so with this in mind you must imagine him at a midnight dinner in Boston the other night, where we gathered around the board of the Summerset Club; Osgood, full, Boyle O'Reilly, full, Fairchild responsively loaded, and Aldrich and myself possessing the floor, and properly fortified.Cable told Mrs.
Clemens when he returned here, that he seemed to have been entertaining himself with horses, and had a dreamy idea that he must have gone to Boston in a cattle-car.It was a very large time.He called it an orgy.
And no doubt it was, viewed from his standpoint.
I wish I were in Switzerland, and I wish we could go to Florence; but we have to leave these delights to you; there is no helping it.We all join in love to you and all the family.
Yours as ever MARK.