per Telegraph Operator
7 January 1872 • Wooster, Ohio
(MS, copy received: MH-H, UCCL 00707)
855 no. 44. half rate messages. the western union telegraph company require that all messages received for transmission shall be written on the blanks of the company, under and subject to the conditions printed thereon, which conditions have been agreed to by the sender of the following half rate message. o. h. palmer, sec’y. william orton, pres’t.1 dated Wooster Ohio 7 187 2 received at Jan 72 to W D Howells Editor Atlantic Monthly. Please telegraph the following to Bret Harte immediately at my cost3 W A Kendall the poet writes that he is friendless & moneyless & is dying by inches as you know doctors say he must return to California & by sea wants to sail the fifteenth will you petition the steamship company for a pass for him & sign my name & h Howells & the other boys to it & forward said pass to Kendall at three twenty three Van1 Buren2 4 street Brooklyn I will send him fifty dollars get him some money if you can I do not know him but I know he is a good fellow and has hard luck5
S L Clemens
114 paid ½ |
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
When Mr.
Kendall lay sick and destitute in New York last year, he appealed to Mr. Harte to relieve his distress; that gentleman and
Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain) headed a subscription paper with which they When Mr visited their acquaintance in New York, and
raised the funds necessary to relieve Mr. Kendall and pay his passage to California. At Mr. Harte’s solicitation, the
Pacific Mail Company allowed Mr. Kendall a first-class passage upon a second class ticket. W. A. Kendall had the claim of
previous acquaintance upon Mr. Harte for these favors. He had known him in California. It appears that Kendall has been what
we are constrained in accuracy to call a “literary bummer” in California for some years. He had made a
precarious livelihood by writing in the papers, and wrote rhymes. At least one of these (and we think two or three) Mr. Harte
admitted to the Overland—apologizing to his friends for their quality, but accepting them, with
the knowledge of his publishers, as a distinct charity. (“W. A.
Kendall,” 21 Dec 72, 8) Kendall apparently sailed from New York on 31 January
aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s Henry Chauncey, arriving in San Francisco (after
changing ships in Panama) on 6 March aboard the Alaska: he is probably the “J. H.
Kendall” and “W. H. Randall” on the passenger lists published in New York and San Francisco newspapers.
He survived in San Francisco until 1876, but “as a sort of literary waif ... utterly prostrated in health ... poor and
destitute, living on weekly contributions from newspaper men,” according to an obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle. He committed suicide in January 1876, leaving a note that reflected with great bitterness on
“these last eight years.” For Kendall’s further efforts to enlist Clemens’s help, see 13 Mar 73 to Howells (San Francisco Chronicle: “Poor Kendall,” 20 Jan 76, 1; “A Forgotten Poet,” 14 July 89, 8; “Poem by
W. A. Kendall,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 7 Nov 68, 1; Kendall 1868, 1869 [bib12808],
1869 [bib12809], 1869 [bib12810], 1869
[bib12811], 1870; Miller; Harte 1866, 74–85; Newman,
99–106; Langley: 1862, 224; 1863, 209; 1865, 255; 1867, 280; “Passengers Sailed,” New York Tribune, 1 Feb
72, 3; “Shipping Intelligence,” San Francisco Morning Call, 7 Mar 72, 4).
Source text(s):
Previous publication:L5, 8–10; LLMT, 171; MTHL, 1:9.
Provenance:The MS is one of 225 letters from Clemens to William Dean Howells, dating from 1872 to 1909, purchased by MH in 1937 from Howells’s children, Mildred Howells and John Mead Howells.
Emendations and textual notes:
II • [possibly ‘IO’]
Twx • [possibly ‘Iwx’ or ‘Tax’]