LETTERS 1871-72.REMOVAL TO HARTFORD.A LECTURE TOUR."ROUGHING IT."FIRST LETTER TO HOWELLS
The house they had taken in Hartford was the Hooker property on Forest Street, a handsome place in a distinctly literary neighborhood.Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and other well-known writers were within easy walking distance; Twichell was perhaps half a mile away.
It was the proper environment for Mark Twain.He settled his little family there, and was presently at Redpath's office in Boston, which was a congenial place, as we have seen before.He did not fail to return to the company of Nasby, Josh Billings, and those others of Redpath's "attractions" as long and as often as distance would permit.Bret Harte, who by this time had won fame, was also in Boston now, and frequently, with Howells, Aldrich, and Mark Twain, gathered in some quiet restaurant corner for a luncheon that lasted through a dim winter afternoon--a period of anecdote, reminiscence, and mirth.They were all young then, and laughed easily.Howells, has written of one such luncheon given by Ralph Keeler, a young Californian--a gathering at which James T.Fields was present "Nothing remains to me of the happy time but a sense of idle and aimless and joyful talk-play, beginning and ending nowhere, of eager laughter, of countless good stories from Fields, of a heat-lightning shimmer of wit from Aldrich, of an occasional concentration of our joint mockeries upon our host, who took it gladly."But a lecture circuit cannot be restricted to the radius of Boston.
Clemens was presently writing to Redpath from Washington and points farther west.
To James Redpath, in Boston:
WASHINGTON, Tuesday, Oct.28, 1871.
DEAR RED,--I have come square out, thrown "Reminiscences" overboard, and taken "Artemus Ward, Humorist," for my subject.Wrote it here on Friday and Saturday, and read it from MS last night to an enormous house.It suits me and I'll never deliver the nasty, nauseous "Reminiscences" any more.
Yours, MARK.
The Artemus Ward lecture lasted eleven days, then he wrote:
To Redpath and Fall, in Boston:
BUFFALO DEPOT, Dec.8, 1871.
REDPATH & FALL, BOSTON,-- Notify all hands that from this time I shall talk nothing but selections from my forthcoming book "Roughing It."Tried it last night.Suits me tip-top.
SAM'L L.CLEMENS.
The Roughing It chapters proved a success, and continued in high favor through the rest of the season.
To James Redpath, in Boston:
LOGANSPORT, IND.Jan.2, 1872.
FRIEND REDPATH,--Had a splendid time with a splendid audience in Indianapolis last night--a perfectly jammed house, just as I have had all the time out here.I like the new lecture but I hate the "Artemus Ward"talk and won't talk it any more.No man ever approved that choice of subject in my hearing, I think.
Give me some comfort.If I am to talk in New York am I going to have a good house? I don't care now to have any appointments cancelled.I'll even "fetch" those Dutch Pennsylvanians with this lecture.
Have paid up $4000 indebtedness.You are the, last on my list.Shall begin to pay you in a few days and then I shall be a free man again.
Yours, MARK.
With his debts paid, Clemens was anxious to be getting home.Two weeks following the above he wrote Redpath that he would accept no more engagements at any price, outside of New England, and added, "The fewer engagements I have from this time forth the better Ishall be pleased." By the end of February he was back in Hartford, refusing an engagement in Boston, and announcing to Redpath, "If Ihad another engagement I'd rot before I'd fill it." From which we gather that he was not entirely happy in the lecture field.
As a matter of fact, Mark Twain loathed the continuous travel and nightly drudgery of platform life.He was fond of entertaining, and there were moments of triumph that repaid him for a good deal, but the tyranny of a schedule and timetables was a constant exasperation.
Meantime, Roughing It had appeared and was selling abundantly.Mark Twain, free of debt, and in pleasant circumstances, felt that the outlook was bright.It became even more so when, in March, the second child, a little girl, Susy, was born, with no attending misfortunes.But, then, in the early summer little Langdon died.
It was seldom, during all of Mark Twain's life, that he enjoyed more than a brief period of unmixed happiness.