‸Saturday‸
Buf. 11th.–
N Now why do you & Bliss go on urging me to make promises? I will not keep them. I have suffered damnation itself in the trammels of periodical writing and I will not apperar once a month nor once in three months, either. in the Publisher nor any other periodical.1
You shall not advertise me as anything more than an occasional contributor—I & I tell you I want you to let me choose my own occasions, [too.2
You ]talk as if I am responsible for your newspaper venture. If I am I want it to stop right here—for I will be damned ‸darned‸ if I, am ‸not‸ going to have another year of harassment about periodical writing. There isn’t money enough between hell & Hartford to hire me to write once a month for any periodical. I would do more to advance Bliss’s interests than any ma [ au other ]man‸’s‸ in the world, but the more I turn it over in my mind how your & Bliss’s letters of yesterday are making the Publisher a paper which the people are to understand is Mark Twain’s paper & to sink or swim on his reputation, the more outrageous I get.
Why, confound it, when & how has this original little promise of mine (to “drop in an occasional screed along with the Company’s other authors,”)3 grown into these formidable dimensions—whereby I am the father & sustainer of the paper & you ‸have‸ actually committed yourselves, & me too with advertisements looking in that direction?
Let this cease. until I see you or Bliss & have another talk face to face. Say nothing more about my appearing in the paper on any other footing than occasionally, like the other authors.
Curse it, man, if I had known that I would not have had it published around that I was staking my [reputation ]as the sponsor of a new journalistic experiment for $30,000 cash—& by the living God ‸yet‸ the thing is being done free gratis for nothing!‸—I mean with‸out‸ any real & tangible contract.‸
Make me the very smallest among the contributors—the very seldomest I mean—& in that way give me some [ weight. Haven’t ]I risked cheapening myself [sufficiently ]by a year’s periodical dancing before the public but must continue it?
I lay awake all last night aggravating myself with this prospect of seeing my hated nom de plume (for I do loathe the very sight of [it. ]) in print again every month.
I am plainly & distinctly committed, by those shuffling gentlemen of the Galaxy for “frequent” articles 4 —& I tell you I wouldn’t write them a single paragraph for twenty-five dollars a word. Keep that to yourself, but it is so. ‸{About Galaxy—scratched it out.}‸
I don’t want to even see my name anywhere in print for 3 months to come. As for being the high chief contributor & main card of the Publisher, I won’t [ her hear ]of it for a single moment. I’d rather break my pen & stop writing just where I am. Our income is plenty good enough without working for more; & sometimes I think I’m a sort of fool for going on working, anyhow.5
Now whenever you mention my name in connection with the paper, s put “occasional contributor” after it & don’t you intimate that I am anything. more.
I s must & will keep shady & quiet till Bret Harte simmers down a little6 & then I mean to go up head again & stay there until I have published the two books already contracted for & just one more beside, which latter shall make a ripping sensation or I have overestimated the possibilities of my subject.7
Now write me something pleasant—& drop me back where I belong—as an occasional contributor. I can produce more than one letter from Bliss saying ‸intimating that‸ he would pay me $5,000 a year for regular contributions8—& I never took him up—yet in your letter you say:
“Put yourself in our place. A new enterprise in which Twain was to be a feature & so widely advertised. Are you going to kick the pail over?”
You had a perfect right to advertise me widely as an occasional contributor, but none to make [ t ]me the responsible for the life or death of the paper. Yet you say:
“Squarely m we must have something from you or we run the risk of going to the dickens”—
Simply puts the responsibility on my shoulders when I have tacitly refused to do the thing for $5,000 a year.
And in your next sentence you say “we must have something every month.”
Clearly this is all wrong. Please to put yourself in my place.
The man who says the least about me in any paper for 3 months to come will do me the greatest favor. I tell you I mean to go slow. I will “top” Bret Harte again or bust. But I can’t do it by dangling eternally in the public view.
Take all I have said kindly—impatiently, perhaps, but not ill‐naturedly, toward either you or Bliss.
Ys
Sam
P. S. Shall ship some book MS. [next. ] [Wednesday;] 9
[new page:]Monday.
I have left this letter two days “to cool”—in order to see if my mind remains the same about it.
I find that it does remain the same, only stronger. The more I think of it the more I feel wronged. After my Galaxy experience I would not appear (originally or otherwise,) in any paper once a month for $7,000 a year.10
Now why did you suppose I would appear constantly in The Publisher under a mere vague understanding that I was to be paid for it? ‸(for I NEVER promised it.)‸
Is it because I am under obligations to the Am. Pub. Co.? That To decide that, it will be necessary to examine the accounts & see which of us has made the most money out of the other.
When Bliss agreed, once, to stand a high royalty on a book contract we were making, I receded voluntarily, & put the per centage a good deal [ lower.] 11
I have never tried to crowd the Co.—but here the Co. is trying very decidedly to crowd [me. ]
I never will enter into even the most trifling business agreement hereafter without having it in writing, with a revenue stamp on it.
I want you to right me, now, as far as you can, & do it without any delay. Drop all advertisements about my writing “exclusively” for the Publisher, for I want no manacles on me. And put this paragraph in prominently:
Correction.
I notice an
An item has appeared in several of the papers to the effect that I am to write regularly for tThe Publisher. It would be wrong to let this error go uncorrected. I only propose to write occasionally—[nothing ]more. ‸—& shall doubtless appear less frequently than any other contributor.‸
Mark Twain
If you alter or leave out that paragraph I shall publish it elsewhere.12
Now I am heartily sick of this whole subject & do not want to hear another word about it. Write me on anything else you please, but drop this & drop it entirely—never to be touched upon again.13
If you had not spread it abroad that I am to write, I would ask you to remove my name wholly from the list of contributors.
Yrs
Sam
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Clemens wrote on the envelope, “Still urging MSS.”
The three enclosures of advertisements mentioned by Bliss have not survived.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L4, 349–57; Hill, 50–51, excerpts; MTLP, 56–60; McElderry, xiv, brief excerpts; Chester L. Davis 1985, 4 (first half), and 1985, 1 (second half).
Provenance:see Appert Collection in Description of Provenance. A handwritten Ayer transcription is at CtHMTH, and a Brownell typescript is at WU (see Brownell
Collection in Description of Provenance).
Emendations and textual notes:
too. [¶] You • too.—| [¶] You
au other • auther [‘a’ reused as ‘o’]
reputation • reputiation
weight. Haven’t • weight.—|Haven’t
sufficiently • sufficei ‸ie‸ntly
it. • [deletion implied]
her hear • herar
t • [partly formed; possibly ‘f’]
Taking • [‘g’ partly formed]
next. • [deletion implied]
Wednesday; • [possibly ‘Wednesday,.’ or ‘Wednesday.;’; deletion implied]
lower. [¶] I • lower. |— [¶] I
me. [¶] I • me.—| [¶] I
nothing • nothimng
