Dec. 26, 1870.
Gentlemen, – I thank you very much for your invitation to the Agricultural dinner, and would promptly accept it and as promptly be there but for the fact that Mr. Greeley is very busy this month and has requested me to clandestinely continue for him in The Tribune the articles “What I Know about Farming.” Consequently the necessity of explaining to the readers of that journal why buttermilk cannot be manufactured profitably at 8 cents a quart out of butter that costs 60 cents a pound compels my stay at home until the article is written.
With reiterated thanks, I am,
Yours truly,
Mark Twain.
In this letter Mark Twain made the usual mistake as to the title of the Greeley farming series, “What I Know of Farming” being the correct form.
The Buffalo Express, under Mark Twain’s management, had become a sort of repository for humorous efforts, often of an indifferent order. Some of these things, signed by nom de plumes, were charged to Mark Twain. When Bret Harte’s “Heathen Chinee” devastated the country, and was so widely parodied, an imitation of it entitled, “Three Aces,” and signed “Carl Byng,” was printed in the Express. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, then editor of Every Saturday, had not met Mark Twain, and, noticing the verses printed in the exchanges over his signature, was one of those who accepted them as Mark Twain’s work. He wrote rather an uncomplimentary note in Every Saturday concerning the poem and its authorship, characterizing it as a feeble imitation of Bret Harte’s “Heathen Chinee.” Clemens promptly protested to Aldrich, then as promptly regretted having done so, feeling that he was making too much of a small matter. Hurriedly he sent a second brief note.
*****
To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of “Every Saturday,” Boston, Massachusetts:
Buffalo, Jan. 22, 1870.
Dear sir, – Please do not publish the note I sent you the other day about “Hy. Slocum’s” plagiarism entitled “Three Aces”—it is not important enough for such a long paragraph. Webb writes me that he has put in a paragraph about it, too – and I have requested him to suppress it. If you would simply state, in a line and a half under “Literary Notes,” that you mistook one “Hy. Slocum” (no, it was one “Carl Byng,” I perceive) “Carl Byng” for Mark Twain, and that it was the former who wrote the plagiarism entitled “Three Aces,” I think that would do a fair justice without any unseemly display. But it is hard to be accused of plagiarism – a crime I never have committed in my life.
Yrs. Truly,
Mark Twain.
But this came too late. Aldrich replied that he could not be prevented from doing him justice, as forty-two thousand copies of the first note, with the editor’s apology duly appended, were already in press. He would withdraw his apology in the next number of Every Saturday, if Mark Twain said so. Mark Twain’s response this time assumed the proportions of a letter.
*****
To Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in Boston:
472 Delaware st., Buffalo, Jan. 28.
Dear Mr. Aldrich, – No indeed, don’t take back the apology! Hang it, I don’t want to abuse a man’s civility merely because he gives me the chance.
I hear a good deal about doing things on the “spur of the moment”—I invariably regret the things I do on the spur of the moment. That disclaimer of mine was a case in point. I am ashamed every time I think of my bursting out before an unconcerned public with that bombastic pow-wow about burning publishers’ letters, and all that sort of imbecility, and about my not being an imitator, etc. Who would find out that I am a natural fool if I kept always cool and never let nature come to the surface? Nobody.
But I did hate to be accused of plagiarizing Bret Harte, who trimmed and trained and schooled me patiently until he changed me from an awkward utterer of coarse grotesquenesses to a writer of paragraphs and chapters that have found a certain favor in the eyes of even some of the very decentest people in the land – and this grateful remembrance of mine ought to be worth its face, seeing that Bret broke our long friendship a year ago without any cause or provocation that I am aware of.
Well, it is funny, the reminiscences that glare out from murky corners of one’s memory, now and then, without warning. Just at this moment a picture flits before me: Scene – private room in Barnum’s Restaurant, Virginia, Nevada; present, Artemus Ward, Joseph T. Goodman, (editor and proprietor Daily “Enterprise"), and “Dan de Quille” and myself, reporters for same; remnants of the feast thin and scattering, but such tautology and repetition of empty bottles everywhere visible as to be offensive to the sensitive eye; time, 2.30 A.M.; Artemus thickly reciting a poem about a certain infant you wot of, and interrupting himself and being interrupted every few lines by poundings of the table and shouts of “Splendid, by Shorzhe!” Finally, a long, vociferous, poundiferous and vitreous jingling of applause announces the conclusion, and then Artemus: “Let every man ’at loves his fellow man and ’preciates a poet ‘at loves his fellow man, stan’ up! – Stan’ up and drink health and long life to Thomas Bailey Aldrich! – and drink it stanning!” (On all hands fervent, enthusiastic, and sincerely honest attempts to comply.) Then Artemus: “Well – consider it stanning, and drink it just as ye are!” Which was done.
You must excuse all this stuff from a stranger, for the present, and when I see you I will apologize in full.
Do you know the prettiest fancy and the neatest that ever shot through Harte’s brain? It was this: When they were trying to decide upon a vignette for the cover of the Overland, a grizzly bear (of the arms of the State of California) was chosen. Nahl Bras. carved him and the page was printed, with him in it, looking thus:
As a bear, he was a success – he was a good bear—. But then, it was objected, that he was an objectless bear – a bear that meant nothing in particular, signified nothing, – simply stood there snarling over his shoulder at nothing – and was painfully and manifestly a boorish and ill-natured intruder upon the fair page. All hands said that – none were satisfied. They hated badly to give him up, and yet they hated as much to have him there when there was no paint to him. But presently Harte took a pencil and drew these two simple lines under his feet and behold he was a magnificent success! – the ancient symbol of California savagery snarling at the approaching type of high and progressive Civilization, the first Overland locomotive!
I just think that was nothing less than inspiration itself.
Once more I apologize, and this time I do it “stanning!”
Yrs. Truly,
Saml. L. Clemens.
The “two simple lines,” of course, were the train rails under the bear’s feet, and completed the striking cover design of the Overland monthly.
The brief controversy over the “Three Aces” was the beginning of along and happy friendship between Aldrich and Mark Twain. Howells, Aldrich, Twichell, and Charles Dudley Warner – these were Mark Twain’s intimates, men that he loved, each for his own special charm and worth.
Aldrich he considered the most brilliant of living men.
In his reply to Clemens’s letter, Aldrich declared that he was glad now that, for the sake of such a letter, he had accused him falsely, and added:
“Mem. Always abuse people.
“When you
