To Francis D. Millet
7 August 1877 • Elmira, N.Y.
(MS facsimile: CU-MARK, UCCL 01468)

Elmira, N.Y. Aug. 7.

My Dear Millet:

Your letter was mighty welcome1—& as coincidences never cease in this world of chance, we received one by the same mail from your brother-in-law in the Boston Custom House.2

We have just read of the big battle, whose name begins with a V.,3 & I write, now with the gravity becoming a person who is possibly addressing himself to a corpse. I have written to corpses, before, unwittingly, but I find a peculiar grandeur in addressing a corpse that may be decorating a field of battle.

There was a time when I would have liked to be there with you & Forbes, Macgahan, & Jackson,4 but that time has gone by. I haven’t done any corresponding since I went to Ostend to receive the Shah & the Herald folks rung some very vile & offensive sentences into my account of that matter.5

We are all extravagantly well, & all send love to our old friend mouldering among the other decaying heroes upon the field of blood. Bay does some gaudy recitations, now, & Susie grows musical apace. Neither of them has forgotten you.

The play of “Ah Sin” which Bret Harte & I had just finished when you came to our house, was produced at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, a week ago, & was received with great enthusiasm by a large & brilliant audience. I made a speech, among other things. The weather is very hot, but the play draws like a blister, nevertheless. I’ve just finished another play. It has some good points in it; but I shan’t bring it out for some months yet—maybe a year. It won’t hurt to let it ripen under correction.

Joaquin Miller has written a play, which is to be produced at Wood’s Museum, New York, the 27th of this month. I’ve forgotten the name of it.6

Howells has written a play for Lawrence Barrett. Howells made good pecuniary terms with him, & Barrett says is vastly pleased with the play.7

Petroleum V. Nasby wanted me to write a play with him, but I didn’t believe we’d amount to anything together, & I see by the papers he has got another collaborateur.8 All the world’s a stage & everybody is writing plays for it.

I never hear of Prentice Mulford now-a-days. Bierce is in San Francisco.9

Mrs. Clemens says please don’t fail to send your photograph according to promise. We recognize the “famille de coeur”—& there’s no lie about that, in your case, depend upon it.

Charley Stoddard hasn’t turned up yet. So I suppose he must still be on the other side.10

Well, good fortune & God be with you!

Ever Yours

S. L. Clemens

To the Remains of our friend the
late Frank Millet,
Care of the Vultures.

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1

After his stay in Hartford in January 1877, when he painted Clemens’s portrait, Millet went to France, establishing his studio in Paris (17 Jan 1877 to Boyesen). Clemens replied to his letter of 9 June, in which he explained his decision, in late May, to accept a position as correspondent for the New York Herald, reporting from Bucharest on the Russo-Turkish War. The letters he mentioned—his “first letter from Paris” and Clemens’s “answer”—have not been found. Millet wrote (CU-MARK):

UCLC 32501

Millet’s “little circus friend” was a Hungarian acrobat, one of his studio models, who had gone to join the Turkish army (Patton 2014, 224). Edward King (1848–96), an American writer of travel memoirs, novels, and poetry, lived in Paris and corresponded for several newspapers, primarily the Boston Journal, before being assigned to report on the war. The words “Tick! tick!” refer to Millet’s visit to Hartford in January 1877. Susie Clemens had composed a letter to him, recorded by Olivia in March: “Papa teached me that tick, tick—my Grandfathers clock was too large for the shelf so it stood 90 years on the floor. Mr Millett is that the same clock that is in your picture” (FamSk, 61). For the other people Millet mentions, see the notes below.

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2Nathan Frank Dunphe (b. 1842), a clerk at the Boston Custom House, who married Millet’s older sister, Susan Byram Millet (1844–1917), in 1866 (Boston Directory 1879, 303). No letter from him to Clemens has been found.

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3The “big battle” in the Russo-Turkish War was over the Bulgarian town of Plevna, which began in July 1877 and continued for five months until the Turkish forces, who had held the town, were defeated by the combined Russian and Romanian army. The conflict received extensive newspaper coverage in the first days of August, and in his dispatches Millet described the battles and the horrible carnage he witnessed in the ruined city (Millet to SLC, 18 Oct 1877, CU-MARK; Patton 2014, 185–91, 224–25, 246–48, 255–59; AutoMT3, 46, 462).

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4Archibald Forbes (1838–1900), a Scotsman, was arguably the most famous war correspondent of his day, covering numerous conflicts during the 1870s for the London Daily News, including the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), the Afghan War (1878), and the Anglo-Zulu War (1879). His critics, however, accused him of writing overdramatic, even falsified, reports. Januarius A. MacGahan (1844–78), also a correspondent for the Daily News, began his career in journalism during the Franco-Prussian War, which he had reported for the New York Herald. He became famous for his exploits and bravery, and his correspondence during the Russo-Turkish War helped to bring about the liberation of Bulgaria and made him a popular hero (AutoMT3, 461–62). John P. Jackson (d. 1897) worked as the New York Herald’s foreign editor before he was sent to correspond from the seat of war, where Millet joined him. He later served as a music critic for the New York World, becoming an expert on Wagner’s operas (Gribayedoff 1895, 39; Hubert 1891, 362; “Numbered with the Dead,” Chicago Tribune, 2 Dec 1897, 4).

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5In 1873 Clemens sent five reports to the New York Herald about the visit of Nasr-Ed-Din, the shah of Persia, to England. They appeared in the paper on 1, 4, 9, 11, and 19 July of that year. The unauthorized additions Clemens complains of here influenced his decision to abandon a planned pamphlet edition of these pieces (7 July 1873 and 2 Aug 1873 to Bliss [1st and 2nd of 2], L5, 409–10, 424–25).

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6Miller’s play, The Danites, was a melodrama about the eponymous secret organization of Mormon vigilantes. Opening at the Broadway Theatre (formerly Wood’s Museum and Metropolitan Theatre) on 22 August 1877, it received mixed reviews. The New York Times, for example, found the work’s “obscurity and tediousness” to be “unpardonable,” but praised the “exceedingly poetical” language of some of the speeches (“Broadway Theatre,” New York Times, 23 Aug 1877, 5; Dennett 1997, 38–39). The Danites was nevertheless a popular success, and was produced for many years both in New York and on tour. Miller later admitted that he did not actually write the script, but had sold the use of his name and the story on which the play was based (Roger A. Hall 2001, 92–99).

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7A Counterfeit Presentment.

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8Clemens had taken a “strong liking” to humorist and satirist Petroleum V. Nasby (pseudonym of David Ross Locke) in 1869, when they met after Locke’s lecture in Hartford (L3: 20 and 21 Jan 1869 to OLL, 56 n. 1; 10 Mar 1869 to OLL and Charles Langdon, 158; AutoMT3, 146, 506). Clemens jotted down Locke’s business address in New York in his 1877 notebook, but it is not known whether the two men saw each other there (N&J2, 11). Several newspapers mentioned that Nasby was writing a “thoroughly American comedy” entitled The Elegant Smith, and the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press printed a full description of it in late August, but no evidence has been found that it was ever staged. Nasby’s collaborator was Charles F. Richardson (1851–1913), the literary editor of the New York Independent, a religious weekly. He was later a professor of Anglo-Saxon and English language at Dartmouth College, his alma mater, and the author of several works on American literature (“American Dramatic Literature,” Literary World, 1 Sept 1877, 63; “The Drama,” Chicago Tribune, 12 Aug 1877, 12; “Personal,” Burlington Evening Free Press and Times, 25 Aug 1877, 3; “Personal,” Burlington Free Press, 31 Aug 1877, 4).

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9Clemens had last seen poet and journalist Prentice Mulford in London in December 1873, when his friend was depressed and short of money. Mulford married and returned to New York in July 1874, which Clemens learned about in early 1875 from Charles Warren Stoddard (L6: 1 Feb 1875 to Stoddard, 365 n. 1, 366 n. 4; 17 Mar 1875 to Stoddard, 416–18 n. 5). Ambrose Bierce, another old California friend, was in England in the early 1870s, contributing to journals such as Figaro and Fun, but had returned to San Francisco in 1875 (Walker 1969, 333–38, 348–49).

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10Stoddard lived with Millet in a romantic relationship in Venice in 1874–75, and they remained close friends. In 1877 he stayed with Millet in Paris before the latter departed for Romania. After a farewell tour of Italy, he left England and arrived in Philadelphia on 26 August. He did not visit the Clemenses until October (Austen 1991, 72–76, 82–84; 22 Oct 1877 to Stoddard).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS facsimile, CU-MARK.

Previous publication:

MicroPUL, reel 1.