Mark Twain Project :: Letters :: : an electronic text

To Theodore F. Seward
8 March 1875 • Hartford, Conn.
(Boston Evening Journal, 13 Mar 75, UCCL 01205)

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[Farmington Avenue, Hartford],
March 8, 1875.

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[Thos. F. Seward, Esq.]
Dear Sir—

I am expecting to hear the Jubilee Singers to-night, for the fifth time (the reason it is not the fiftieth is because I have not had fifty opportunities),1 [&] I wish to ask a favor of them. I remember an afternoon in London, when their “John Brown’s Body” took a decorous, aristocratic English audience by surprise & threw them into a volcanic eruption of applause before they knew what they were about. I never saw anything finer than their enthusiasm. Now, John Brown is not in this evening’s programme; cannot it be added? It would set me down in London again for a minute or two, & at the same time save me the tedious sea voyage & the expense.2 I was glad of the triumph the Jubilee Singers achieved in England, for their music so well deserved such a result.3 Their success in this country is pretty well attested by the fact that there are already companies of imitators trying to ride into public favor by endeavoring to convey the impression that they are the original Jubilee Singers.4

Very truly,

[Samuel L. Clemens].
(Mark Twain.)

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 The Jubilee Singers, a group of African-American students from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, were known for their moving renditions of slave songs and spirituals. Theodore (not Thomas) F. Seward (1835–1902) was the group’s current musical director, engaged to assist their regular conductor—George L. White, who was in poor health—on their second European tour, scheduled to begin in May. Previously Seward had studied music in Boston, then worked as an organist, music teacher, and editor of the Musical Pioneer and the Musical Gazette. About 1869 he had become interested in African-American music and in 1871 was engaged to transcribe and edit the first collection of the songs of the Jubilee Singers, published in 1872 (Seward). By March 1873, when Clemens wrote an enthusiastic endorsement for the singers’ first European tour, he had already heard them sing at least once, and probably twice. While in London that summer he heard them twice more. The present concert in Hartford was their first in that city since their return from England (L5, 315–16, 414 n. 2; Marsh, 78–79; “Amusements,” Hartford Courant, 8 Mar 75, 3).

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2 “John Brown’s Body” memorialized the famous abolitionist who wished to invade the South and liberate the slaves, but was hanged as a traitor after leading an 1859 attack on the United States armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). The original tune was a folk song, its words evidently composed by Union soldiers during the first year of the Civil War. (Julia Ward Howe adopted the tune for the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” published in the Atlantic Monthly for February 1862 [9:145].) In 1873 the song had awakened “special enthusiasm” in English audiences: at a performance hosted by Prime Minister William Gladstone and his wife for the royal family, Mrs. Gladstone requested an encore “as a special favor to the Grand Duchess Czarevna, whose imperial father-in-law had emancipated the serfs in Russia” (Marsh, 52). Below are the lyrics, as sung by the Jubilee Singers. The first lines of verses one, three, and four (and the chorus) are repeated twice before the second line is sung; the chorus is sung after every verse except the third.

John Brown’s body lies a mould’ring in the grave,

But his soul’s marching on.

Glory, glory Hallelujah,

His soul’s marching on.

He captured Harper’s Ferry

with his nineteen men so true,

And he frightened old Virginia till she

trembled through and through.

They hung him for a traitor,

themselves the traitor crew,

But his soul’s marching on.

John Brown died that the slave might be free,

But his soul’s marching on.

Now has come the glorious jubilee,

When all mankind are free.

(Marsh, 223–24; Marius, xix–xx.) Clemens had probably read the Jubilee Singers’ intended program printed in the Hartford Courant on 6 March. On the morning after the concert the Courant noted:

There was standing room only for late comers at the Opera House last evening on the occasion of the reappearance of the Fisk Jubilee singers, and the audience was as enthusiastic as it was numerous. Applause was profuse and encores frequent. In response to one recall the troupe sang “John Brown’s Body” with great spirit and effect. Previous to its rendering, the director read a letter from a well known citizen of Hartford, describing the enthusiasm with which the piece was received in London and requesting that it should be added to the programme. The troupe has improved considerably since its last appearance, and its rendering of the slave songs is now as effective as could be well imagined. These excellent singers will always be welcome in Hartford. (“The Jubilee Singers,” 6 Mar 75, 9 Mar 75, 2)

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3 During their first tour the Jubilee Singers raised nearly ten thousand pounds for their university. The second tour was not as remunerative, primarily because of economic “hard times” (L5, 316 n. 1; Marsh, 86–99).

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4 Frederick J. Loudin, a soloist who had recently joined the group (Marsh, 114), had told an audience at Waterbury, Connecticut, about its financial struggles and the competition it faced:

Mr. F. A. Loudin, whose splendid bass voice had given him a special claim upon us, made a neat little speech toward the close of the concert which, if it could be heard beforehand in your churches, would carry the day in favor of the “Jubilees,” in the face of the crowd of catch-penny performances now seeking the eye and the ear of the public, and in spite of the hard times which he spoke of. (“The Jubilee Singers To-Night,” Hartford Courant, 8 Mar 75, 2)

(Clemens gave Loudin an autograph: “Very Truly Yr friend | Samℓ. L. Clemens | Mark Twain | Hartford Mch 1875” [ORaHi].) Clemens’s “companies of imitators” doubtless included a group that had appeared in Hartford on 18 January 1875, advertising itself as the “Famous Original Jubilee Singers! From Jackson University, Tennessee—(12 persons former slaves, male and female).” The Courant declared the singers “by no means equal to the original jubilee singers from Fisk university, upon whose reputation they seem to be traveling. . . . their concert certainly showed they were not endowed with equal musical gifts, nor have they apparently enjoyed equal opportunities for training” (Hartford Courant: “Amusements,” 18 Jan 75, 1; “The Jubilee Singers,” 19 Jan 75, 2). Still another group of “jubilee singers,” from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, in Hampton, Virginia, had performed regularly since 1873, and appeared in New York City on 3 and 8 March (Odell, 9:340, 353, 364, 495, 506, 639). Clemens’s enthusiasm for the Fisk Jubilee Singers did not diminish. In 1897 he described one of their performances in Lucerne, Switzerland:

Then rose and swelled out . . . one of those rich chords the secret of whose make only the Jubilees possess, and a spell fell upon that house. It was fine to see the faces light up with the pleased wonder and surprise of it. . . . Arduous and painstaking cultivation has not diminished or artificialized their music, but on the contrary—to my surprise—has mightily reinforced its eloquence and beauty. Away back in the beginning—to my mind—their music made all other vocal music cheap; and that early notion is emphasized now. It is utterly beautiful, to me; and it moves me infinitely more than any other music can. (22 Aug 97 to Twichell, MTL, 2:645–46)

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

“Mark Twain and the Jubilee Singers,” Boston Evening Journal, 13 Mar 75, 4. Copy-text is a microfilm edition of the newspaper in the Library of Congress (DLC). The original letter may have been written on monogram letterhead.

glyph Previous publication: L6, 406–8; Martin, 2–3.

glyph Emendations and textual notes:

Farmington Avenue, Hartford • Farmington Avenue, Hartford

Thos. F. Seward, Esq. • Thos. F. Seward, Esq.

& • and [here and hereafter]

Samuel L. Clemens • SAMUEL L. CLEMENS