slc
Feb. 28
My dear Friend—we are all delighted with your commendations of the Gilded Age1—& the more so because some of our newspapers have set forth the opinion that Warner really wrote the book & I only added my name to the title-page in order to give it a large sale. It is a shameful charge to make. I wrote the first eleven chapters—every word & every line—Warner never retouched a sentence in them, I believe. I also wrote chapters 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 51, 52, 53, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, & portions of 35, 49, & 56. So I wrote 32 of the 63 chapters entirely, & part of 3 others beside.2
The fearful financial panic hit the book heavily, for we published in the midst of it. But nevertheless in the 8 weeks that have now elapsed since the day we published, we have sold 40,000 copies—which ‸gives‸ ◇ [ £2,400 £3,000 ] royalty to be divided between the authors. This is really the largest two-months’ sale which any American book has ever achieved (unless one excepts the cheap edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin). The average price of our book is 16 shillings a copy—Uncle Tom was 2 shillings a copy. But for the panice our sale would have been doubled, I verily believe. ‸I do not believe the sale will ultimately go over 100,000 copies.‸ 3
I shipped to you, from Liverpool, Darley’s Illustrations of Judd’s “Margaret,” which (the waiter at the Aldelphi Hotel agreeing to ship it securely per parcel delivery,) & I do hope it did not miscarry, for we in America think a deal of Darley’s work. I shipped the novel (“Margaret”) to you from here a week ago.4
Indeed I am thankful for the wifies & the child—& if there is one individual creature on all this footstool who is more thoroughly & uniformly & unceasingly happy than I am I defy the world to produce him & prove him. In my opinion, he don’t exist. I was a mighty rough, coarse, unpromising subject when Livy took charge of me 4 years ago, & I may still be, to the rest of the world, but not to her. She has made a very creditable job of me.
Success to the Mark Twain Club!—& the novel shibbolleth of the whistle. Of course any member, rising to speak, would be required to preface his remarks with a keen respectful whistle at the chair—the chair recognizing the speaker with an answering shriek—& then as the speech proceeded, its gravity & force would be emphasized & its impressiveness augmented by the continual interjection of whistles in place in of punctuation-pauses; & the applause of the audience would be manifested in the same way. Suppose you just gather the Judge, & your brother & your Jock & Mr. Barcalay, & an utter stranger or two about your [fireside ] & give the thing an experimental trial to see how it will work. I would like to see it tried in Parliament, too, just for the sake of the sparkle & variety it would impart to the proceedings.5
I’ve been trying to sing the Judge’s delicious Mic-Mac-Methuselah-Mc Per Fairshon song, but I can’t exactly get the right swing to it.6
They’ve gone to luncheon, & I must follow. With strong love from us both,7
Your friend,
Samℓ. L. Clemens
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Brown was more candid about his opinion of The Gilded Age in a letter of 18 January to the
Reverend John Forsyth, a chaplain and professor at West Point: “It is powerful but unequal—& lacks
the true storytelling knack” (PHi; L5, 441 n. 4). “Megalopis” was Brown’s nickname for Susy. Henry P. Stearns was a physician and
the superintendent at the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane in Hartford. Alexander Russel, the editor of the Edinburgh Scotsman, and his wife entertained the Clemenses at their country home in August 1873. Clemens’s
“dear boy” was his son, Langdon, who died on 2 June 1872. The source of the remark by John Bright, an English
statesman, has not been found (L5, 97–101, 396, 427–30; Geer: 1873, 128; 1874, 134, 293).
It seems incredible that Dr. John should ever have wanted to tell a grotesque and rollicking anecdote. Such a
thing seems so out of character with that gentle and tranquil nature that——but no matter. I tried to teach him
the anecdote, and he tried his best for two or three days to perfect himself in it—and he never succeeded. It was the
most impressive exhibition that ever was. There was no human being, nor dog, of his acquaintance in all Edinburgh that would not
have been paralyzed with astonishment to step in there and see Dr. John trying to do that anecdote. It was one which I have told
some hundreds of times on the platform, and which I was always very fond of, because it worked the audience so hard. It was a
stammering man’s account of how he got cured of his infirmity—which was accomplished by introducing a whistle
into the midst of every word which he found himself unable to finish on account of the obstruction of the stammering. And so his
whole account was an absurd mixture of stammering and whistling—which was irresistible to an audience properly keyed up
for laughter. Dr. John learned to do the mechanical details of the anecdote, but he was never able to inform these details with
expression. He was preternaturally grave and earnest all through, and so when he fetched up with the climaxing triumphant sentence
at the end—but I must quote that sentence, or the reader will not understand. It was this: “The doctor told me that whenever I wanted to sta- (whistle) sta- (whistle) sta- (whistle) ammer, I must whistle; and I did, and it k- (whistle) k- (whistle) k- (whistle) k—ured me entirely!” The Doctor could not master that triumphant note. He always gravely stammered and whistled and whistled and
stammered it through, and it came out at the end with the solemnity and the gravity of the Judge delivering sentence to a man with
the black cap on. (CU-MARK, in MTA, 2:46–47) The “Judge” was Brown’s friend Alexander Nicolson (1827–93), a sheriff
substitute (an undersheriff who hears cases) and also a lawyer, writer, and scholar of Gaelic and Greek. Clemens met him and the
others mentioned here—George Barclay, Brown’s son, John (Jock), and Brown’s younger brother,
William—in Scotland in 1873 (Brown to SLC, several letters in 1873–74, 8 June 76, CU-MARK; Barclay to SLC, 28 Feb 76, 5 May 76, CU-MARK; L5, 427, 429 n. 5, 441 n. 4).
Brown’s wife, Catherine, died in 1864. Clemens met John Lothrop Motley, a historian and diplomat, in
London in 1873. The “poor accounts of Motley” were no doubt about his health: since July 1873 he had been
suffering from the affliction that would claim his life in 1877. Senator Charles Sumner was a bitter political enemy of President
Grant’s. His recent death, on 11 March, no doubt occasioned Brown’s remarks, but no personal connection has
been discovered. The close friendship between Sumner and Motley was believed to be the principal reason that Grant dismissed Motley
in 1870 from his post as minister to Great Britain. Blair Atholl was some sixty miles north of Edinburgh (L5, 392 n. 1, 429 n. 3; Motley to Oliver Wendell Holmes, 17 Apr 74, in Motley, 2:376–77)
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L6. 53–57; MTB, 1:505, excerpt; Paine 1917, 782–83, and MTL, 1:214–16, with omission.
Provenance:The Morse Collection was donated in 1942 by Walter F. Frear. At that time the MS was laid in a copy of The Gilded
Age (American Publishing Company, 1873).
Emendations and textual notes:
£2,400 £3,000 • £2 3,400000
fireside • fire-|side
