LETTERS, 1893, TO MR.HALL, MRS.CLEMENS, AND OTHERS.FLORENCE.
BUSINESS TROUBLES."PUDD'NHEAD WILSON." "JOAN OF ARC."AT THE PLAYERS, NEW YORK
The reader may have suspected that young Mr.Hall in New York was having his troubles.He was by this time one-third owner in the business of Charles L.Webster & Co., as well as its general manager.The business had been drained of its capital one way and another-partly by the publication of unprofitable books; partly by the earlier demands of the typesetter, but more than all by the manufacturing cost and agents'
commissions demanded by L.A.L.; that is to say, the eleven large volumes constituting the Library of American Literature, which Webster had undertaken to place in a million American homes.There was plenty of sale for it--indeed, that was just the trouble; for it was sold on payments--small monthly payments--while the cost of manufacture and the liberal agents' commissions were cash items, and it would require a considerable period before the dribble of collections would swell into a tide large enough to satisfy the steady outflow of expense.A sale of twenty-five sets a day meant prosperity on paper, but unless capital could be raised from some other source to make and market those books through a period of months, perhaps even years, to come, it meant bankruptcy in reality.It was Hall's job, with Clemens to back him, to keep their ship afloat on these steadily ebbing financial waters.It was also Hall's affair to keep Mark Twain cheerful, to look pleasant himself, and to show how they were steadily getting rich because orders were pouring in, though a cloud that resembled bankruptcy loomed always a little higher upon the horizon.If Hall had not been young and an optimist, he would have been frightened out of his boots early in the game.As it was, he made a brave steady fight, kept as cheerful and stiff an upper lip as possible, always hoping that something would happen--some grand sale of his other books, some unexpected inflow from the type-setter interests--anything that would sustain his ship until the L.A.L.tide should turn and float it into safety.
Clemens had faith in Hall and was fond of him.He never found fault with him; he tried to accept his encouraging reports at their face value.He lent the firm every dollar of his literary earnings not absolutely needed for the family's support; he signed new notes; he allowed Mrs.Clemens to put in such remnants of her patrimony as the type-setter had spared.
The situation in 1893 was about as here outlined.The letters to Hall of that year are frequent and carry along the story.To any who had formed the idea that Mark Twain was irascible, exacting, and faultfinding, they will perhaps be a revelation.
To Fred J.Hall, in New York:
FLORENCE, Jan.1, '93.
DEAR MR.HALL,--Yours of Dec.19 is to hand, and Mrs.Clemens is deeply distressed, for she thinks I have been blaming you or finding fault with you about something.But most surely that cannot be.I tell her that although I am prone to write hasty and regrettable things to other people, I am not a bit likely to write such things to you.I can't believe I have done anything so ungrateful.If I have, pile coals of fire on my head, for I deserve it!
I wonder if my letter of credit isn't an encumbrance? Do you have to deposit the whole amount it calls for? If that is so, it is an encumbrance, and we must withdraw it and take the money out of soak.
I have never made drafts upon it except when compelled, because I thought you deposited nothing against it, and only had to put up money that Idrew upon it; that therefore the less I drew the easier it would be for you.
I am dreadfully sorry I didn't know it would be a help to you to let my monthly check pass over a couple of months.I could have stood that by drawing what is left of Mrs.Clemens's letter of credit, and we would have done it cheerfully.
I will write Whitmore to send you the "Century" check for $1,000, and you can collect Mrs.Dodge's $2,000 (Whitmore has power of attorney which Ithink will enable him to endorse it over to you in my name.) If you need that $3,000 put it in the business and use it, and send Whitmore the Company's note for a year.If you don't need it, turn it over to Mr.
Halsey and let him invest it for me.
I've a mighty poor financial head, and I may be all wrong--but tell me if I am wrong in supposing that in lending my own firm money at 6 per cent Ipay 4 of it myself and so really get only a per cent? Now don't laugh if that is stupid.
Of course my friend declined to buy a quarter interest in the L.A.L.
for $200,000.I judged he would.I hoped he would offer $100,000, but he didn't.If the cholera breaks out in America, a few months hence, we can't borrow or sell; but if it doesn't we must try hard to raise $100,000.I wish we could do it before there is a cholera scare.
I have been in bed two or three days with a cold, but I got up an hour ago, and I believe I am all right again.
How I wish I had appreciated the need of $100,000 when I was in New York last summer! I would have tried my best to raise it.It would make us able to stand 1,000 sets of L.A.L.per month, but not any more, Iguess.
You have done magnificently with the business, and we must raise the money somehow, to enable you to reap the reward of all that labor.
Sincerely Yours S.L.CLEMENS.
"Whitmore," in this letter, was F.G.Whitmore, of Hartford, Mark Twain's financial agent.The money due from Mrs.Dodge was a balance on Tom Sawyer Abroad, which had been accepted by St.Nicholas.Mr.Halsey was a down-town broker.
Clemens, who was growing weary of the constant demands of L.A.L., had conceived the idea that it would be well to dispose of a portion of it for enough cash to finance its manufacture.
We don't know who the friend was to whom he offered a quarter interest for the modest sum of two hundred thousand dollars.But in the next letter we discover designs on a certain very canny Scotchman of Skibo.
To Fred J.Hall, in New York:
FLORENCE, Jan.28, '92.