Buf. Nov. 5.
Friend Bliss:
It is a splendid idea! He will [ mad make ] a tip-top editor—a better than I, because he is full of talent & besides is perfectly faithful, honest, straightforward & reliable. There isn’t money enough in America to get him to do a dishonest act—whereas I am different. You just take him in hand & laugh with him & talk with him & keep him jolly, & I will answer for his editorial ability. I don’t fancy that you will have much trouble keeping him jolly, either, though he is not quite so sprightly & idiotic as I am. I find he is getting $1,300 a year where he is, but if you can’t stand the extra hundred, I’ll pay it. He gets $25 a week = $1,300 a year.
I have written him to let me know how soon he can come on, & have advised him to leave his wife here or at Fredonia with my sister till he goes to Hartford & arranges for board or house-rent.
I guess that after you have had him a year you will find that he is really worth a deal of money to you—I am well enough satisfied of it to bet money on it.
Well I thank you very much, Bliss, I d & I hope that results will in every way justify your kindness & leave you nothing to regret in the matter.
Clemens.
[letter docketed:] Mark Twain | Nov 5/70 | Author
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L4, 223; AAA/Anderson 1934, lot 123, brief paraphrase; AAA/Anderson 1935, lot 80, brief
paraphrase; MTLP, 41–42.
Provenance:The MS evidently remained among the American Publishing Company’s
files until it was sold (and may have been copied at that time by Dana Ayer;
see Brownell Collection in Description of Provenance). The Ayer
transcription was in turn copied by a typist and both the handwritten and
typed transcriptions are at WU. The MS was offered for sale in 1934 and
1935. Until his death in 1939 it was 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:
mad make • madke
Ys Yrs • Ysrs
