To
John Henry Riley
2 December 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y.
(MS and transcript: CU-MARK and NN-B, UCCL 00547)
‸{Preserve this letter.}‸
Buf. Dec. 2.
Dear Riley:
Your letter has come, & I have “reflected.” I had already done that [ I ] a good deal & so my mind is not altered.1
You know right well that I would not have you depart a hair from any obligation, either for any money. The [boundless ]confidence I have in you is born of un a conviction of your integrity in small as well as great things. I know plenty of men whose integrity I would trust to here, but not off yonder in Africa.
I do not want you to dishonor any obligation, but I want you to write instantly to the Alta & the other papers saying, “I am offered a rare opportunity to permanently better my fortunes, & therefore I have appointed so & so to be your correspondent in my place., provided you approve; otherwise please instruct me by return mail how next to proceed.”2 Of course you can elaborate this, but is the idea correct?—that is, providing there is nothing graver or more binding than usually exists between publisher & correspondent. If these publishers can discharge you when they please, just as I they can discharge their local reporter when they please, you are doing nothing wrong if you give them a fort-night’s warning & do all you can to leave your place satisfactorily supplied.
But if your understandings are stronger, you cannot thus give them notice, but you can ask them r as a perfectly reasonable favor, to release you with all convenient dispatch. None of these propositions of mine have in them any taint of dishonor.
As for Sutro, his big heart will simply ◇ jump up & say, “By — Riley, don’t stop a minute for my matters—if it’s the best thing for you I won’t stand in your way.”3
That Cole & Carter will “rely on your aid” is an obligation only this far: if they can [ insure ]you better results than [ Africa offers ]some other field offers, then in a business way they are entitled to rely on your aid. If you are in debt to them for past favors not predicated tacitly upon your aid in this session, then you are [ in ] morally bound. But in any case your simple request with sta averment that you see an unusually promising chance for you ought to secure their instant & cordial acquiescence.4
As to your committees. By a vote, your committees can discharge you. By a vote they can decline to [re-elect] you, after all your long service. If they could greatly better themselves, it would not only be their fair & just policy to do one of these things, but their ‸official‸ duty to do it. But if I engage you to go to Africa for 3 or 6 months, w for wages, for me, I can not discharge you., till your time is up., no matter whether you suit me or not.
But take no snap judgment on the committees, either. Let them choose a clerk, & do you diligently instruct ‸him‸ while you get ready for Africa.5
You have certain moral obligations resting upon you toward all these parties you have mentioned—& also some less strenuous business ones. But in both cases they are doubtless such as an [earnest] request from you would cheerfully cancel.
Now I come to business.
This thing is the pet scheme of my life. As follows:
1. I to pay your passage both to & from the South African diamond fields.
2. You to skirmish, [ prof ] prospect, work, travel, & take min t pretty minute notes, with hand & brain, for 3 or 6 months 3 months (or 5 or 6 if necessary,) I paying you a hundred dollars a month, for you to live on. {Not more, because sometimes I want you to have to sku shin like everything for a square meal—for experiences are the kind of book-material I want.}
3. If you should pick up $5,000 worth of diamonds, you (within the specified time,) you to pocket that.
4. If you should make more, ‸(in any way whatever,)‸ before returning here (either during or subsequent to the specified 3 or 6 months,) you to send me half of that surplus—after first securing your $5,000 all right.
5. You to overstay the 3 months on no other condition ‸than‸ that you pay me $5,000 a month in advance for each month so overstaid, & divide earnings with me beside!. {Oh, I guess you’d better come home for a while & persuade me to drop No. 5, at least.}
6. You to use these manifold-paper diaries & so that you can every day or every few days write two journals at once, & mail one to me & preserve the other carefully yourself.6
7. You are to write no [ l ] newspaper letters while gone, & write no private letters without taking care that their contents shall be kept out of [print. {I ]want to lay all the ropes thoroughly & then spring this book on the public.} I don’t want other publishers to have a chance to come the usual pitiful game—i. e., come out with an opposition book which rides into grand prosperity on the tide of the other’s success, instead of falling still-born, as it would if left to itself.} ‸This to be a secret expedition while in progress, but to be a frightfully celebrated one 6 months afterward, ‸not only here but‸ in every language on ear in civilized Europe.}‸
8.
8. You to come to my house at the end of your labors, & live with me, at $50 a month & board, (I to furnish the cigars,) from 4 to 12 months, till I have pumped you dry—for‸, the purpose of‸ your diary is to keep you ‸(as well as me,)‸ bright & inspire your tongue every morning when you sit take a seat in my study. You are to talk one or two hours to me every day, & tell your story—& the rest of the day & night you can do what you please with—& at 3 P. M., I shall always quit work too. With your diary by me I shall be able to write without mistakes after you are gone out for walking or driving.
9. At no time within five years are you to write or publish a book about Africa or its diamond fields. {This will fool rival publishers, too.}
All the above is for my [ m ] benefit. But some shall enure to you., in case you follow my [ plam plan]. Thus:
1. You see an interesting part of the world, & one upon which the [ y ] eyes of the wo whole world are gazing centred.
2. It don’t cost you a cent to go or come, nor give you a chance to starve while there.
3. It does give you a chance to pick up a fortune in 3 months—the very same chance that thousands would be glad to take at their own expense.
4. I should write the book as if I went through all these adventures myself—this in order to give it snap & freshness. But would begin the Chapter book by saying: “When Daniel de Foe wanted to know what life on a solitary island was like, & doubted whether he [ cou ] was hardy enough to stand it himself, he sent the ingenious Robinson W. Crusoe; & when I wanted to know all about the wild life in the diamond fields & its fascinations, I sent the & could not go myself, I sent the ingenious Riley. Now Riley, having [returned ]from his pilgrimage, sits down [night & after ]night & tells his story & when he has finished I set it down from memory—not getting the [ ex ] not caring so much about the exact language as about the spirit of the narration, of course—but using his language when it suits me, [& ]when it suits me putting words of my own to his ideas, fancies & adventures—& just as often the one as the other. In all cases it is Riley speaking, whether the children of his mind appear in the clothing wherein they issued from the door of their nursery, or have doffed a cap or changed a stocking here & there. And to begin, Riley says: [“I left New York on board, etc., etc., etc.”]
Do you see? And I’ll hurl in a parenthesis of my own, occasionally, in brackets,—a comment on you or descriptive remark or anecdote about you, or fancy portrait of you in various circumstances of the voyage or adventures in the mines—& do these things [so ]guilelessly that before the reader knows it he is perishing to see Riley.
Then my object is accomplished & my game’s made! Because thus I can slam you into the lecture field for life & secure you ten thousand dollars a year as long as you live, & all the idle time you want, to loaf & travel in or raise a family. I mention lecturing without any fears because you were born for the platform—you were intended to stand before an audience, & not smile or make a gesture, but simply talk quietly along in a conversational voice & fashion & make them deal out laughter & applause in avalanches. And I mention lecturing with [no] misgivings that you may object, for the reason that I do not take you to be a man either afraid or ashamed to undertake a responsibility which another man would dare.
I would want to “coach” you, thoroughly, drill you completely (for it took me 3 or 4 years to learn the dead sure tricks of the platform, but I could teach them to you in 3 or 4 weeks so that when you stepped on a stage you would not be wondering within yourself whether you were going to vanquish the audience, but would absolutely know you would do it.)
When you got to Boston or Philadelphia, (either you pleased,) I would introduce you to the audience (provided you wished it,) or follow you with a paragraph, & if it wasn’t a good advertisement I want to know why?
5. You should infallibly begin your lecture career at $75 to $150 a night, & in your second lecture season (with the same old lecture,) you should have engagements enough to keep you talking right along for seven months, if you wanted to.
6. In your “off” months you could travel to some quaint country & get up a new lecture about it, & issue a profitable book through my publisher, well aware that your celebrity would give it a great sale—but I’d rather that you went at my expense every time & let me have the book, old boy.
7. If you never lecture, & never make anything in the diamond land (over [ $0 $5,000]) you’ll not owe me anything. But if you do lecture, then you can pay me back your expenses, in your second or third season, provided your lecturing is the success I have promised it will be, but not otherwise.
lightrule
Finally.—
1. You don’t get a cent out of the book. But,
2. You may pick up $50,000 in the mines. And,
3. In 5 years of lecturing you shall receive $50,000 if you’ll lecture.
4.
lightrule
Pull & all haul my scheme as you please—criticise as you will, it’s as sound as a drum—there isn’t a leak in it. I’m bound to make money out of it if you get back, & you are bound to make money lecturing if you will.
For the certain & assured prosperity of us both, there needs not to be a solitary (or solitaire) diamond in all Africa, & I am not—what we want is to tell in the book & on the platform how lively a time we [ have had ] hunting for them.
lightrule
But I [ ure urge ]upon you, “Expedition’s the word!” Clear & out now, & let us publish the first book & take the richest cream & deliver the freshest & newest & most fascinating picture of this rush, & not come lagging in second or third or fourth, on a public sh [ ho◇ ]whose appetite has begun to lose its grand [ravenousness. Now ]is the time to start—strike while the iron is hot. Sail hence, New [Year’s: — ]
10th Jan. arrive England.
30th
″″Natal.
Feb. Mch. Apl. in Africa.
Sail May 1, reach here June 30.
July, Aug., Sept., Oct., you talk & I write.
Nov., Dec. & Jan., the book in press & printing 50,000 copies before one is issued.; & all as ely as possible. Agents taking 50,000 subscriptions in the meantime. And in the meantime let them ‸the publishers‸ start scratch for all the oppositions books they want to—I’ll launch the Riley book Feb. 1, 1872, & sweep the world like a besom of destruction (if you know what that is.)7
‸Feb. &‸ March & April I’ll ‸¶ During Feb., I’ll‸ drill you in your lecture.
‸March, Apl.,‸ May, June, July, send you traveling, if there’s nothing better to do, & let you get me another book & return & fill me up.
June, July, Aug & Sept., you talk & I write.
Middle of October, you begin & lecture till first of next April or May & then go to Cal & talk in San F at $1200 or $1500 a night.8
There isn’t a solitary thing in this entire programme that cannot be carried out to the very letter , if you will lecture. I don’t say if you can, but if you [ will ]. I’ll make you make some of the “humorous” lecturers very sick.
But hurry, now. There is no single moment of time to lose. If you could start now, it would be splendid—we’d gain a months—but I know you’ll have to have 2 or 3 weeks in which to fairly & honorably release yourself from your se ‸existing‸ business bu [ties. Run ]up here as soon as you can, & let’s talk it all over. Com
Commence, now, Riley, & post yourself as to expenses, & let me know. I say nothing about posting yourself about other matters needful for to know, because I know your habits of mind.
Hang it, I’ll have you so well known in 18 months that there will be no man so ignorant as to have to ask “Who is Riley?”—& that will stab Fitz Smythe to the [ ha heart]!9
Answer.10
Yr friend
Samℓ. L. Clemens.
P P. S. Mind you keep the secret absolutely. One don’t have such a valuable one entrusted to him every day.
P.S. If you couldn’t, I had my eye on Dan de Quille, but I sort of doubt if poor old Dan could [take] a right big interest in anything, now.11
Private.
J. H. Riley, Esq
P. O. Box 75
Washington
D. C.
{graphic group: 1 horizontal squiggle inline top}
[postmarked:] [buffalo n.y.]dec 3Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Riley had come to Buffalo on 30 October, registering at the Mansion House hotel (“Hotel
Arrivals,” Buffalo Express, 31 Oct 70, 4). Pniel, South Africa, was about thirty miles east of Cape
Town.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L4, 258–66; MTB, 1:423, paraphrase and brief excerpt; AAA 1925, lot 108a, paraphrase
and brief excerpts (from transcription and envelope); Underhill, [1]–[8] (transcription); AAA/Anderson 1936, lot 120, paraphrase and brief excerpts (transcription and
envelope); MTLP, 46–52.
Provenance:for the letter MS, see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance. The transcription and envelope were sold in 1924, 1925, and
1936 (AAA 1924, lot 93, and 1925, lot 108a; AAA/Anderson 1936, lot 120). Until his death in 1939 they were owned by W. T. H. Howe; in 1940, the Howe
Collection was purchased by Dr. Albert A. Berg and donated to NN (Cannon,
185–86).
Emendations and textual notes:
MS is copy-text for ‘{Preserve
. . . course—’ (258.1–261.11)
I • [partly formed]
boundless • boundeesless
insure • insussre [underscore added after revision]
Africa offers • [false ascenders/descenders]
in • [‘i’ partly formed]
re-elect • re-|elect
earnest • ear-| rnest
prof prospect • profspect [canceled ‘f’ partly formed]
l • [partly formed]
print. {I • print.—|{I
m • [partly formed; possibly ‘n’ or ‘w’]
plam plan • plamn
y • [partly formed]
cou • [‘u’ partly formed]
returned • returened
night & after • [sic]
ex • [‘x’ partly formed] [Transcript is copy-text for ‘but . . . boy.’ (261.11–262.13)]
& • [and also at 261.13 (twice), 16, 21, 23, 24, 25 (twice), 28, 29 (three times); 262.3, 6, 9, 10, 12]
“I . . . etc.” • ‘I . . . etc.’”
so • a so [MS is copy-text for ‘7. If . . . dec 3’ (262.14–264.4)]
$0 $5,000 • $05,000
have had • haved
ure urge • urege
ho◇ • [possibly ‘ha◇’]
ravenousness. Now • ravenousness.—| Now
Years: — • [deletion implied]
will • [possibly ‘will’]
ties. Run • ties.—|Run
ha heart • haeart
buffalo n.y.
•
[b]uffalo
[
y]
[badly inked]
