“Mark Twain's story in the Saturday Press of November 18th, called
'Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,' has set all New York in a roar,
and he may be said to have made his mark. I have been asked fifty
times about it and its author, and the papers are copying it far and
near. It is voted the best thing of the day. Cannot the
'Californian' afford to keep Mark all to itself? It should not let
him scintillate so widely without first being filtered through the
California press.”
The New York publishing house of Carleton & Co. gave the sketch to
the Saturday Press when they found it was too late for the book.
It is difficult to judge the jumping Frog story to-day. It has the intrinsic fundamental value of one of AEsop's Fables.—[The resemblance of the frog story to the early Greek tales must have been noted by Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who synopsized it in Greek form and phrase for his book, Greek Prose Composition. Through this originated the impression that the story was of Athenian root. Mark Twain himself was deceived, until in 1899, when he met Professor Sidgwick, who explained that the Greek version was the translation and Mark Twain's the original; that he had thought it unnecessary to give credit for a story so well known. See The Jumping Frog, Harper & Bros., 1903, p. 64.]—It contains a basic idea which is essentially ludicrous, and the quaint simplicity of its telling is convincing and full of charm. It appeared in print at a time when American humor was chaotic, the public taste unformed. We had a vast appreciation for what was comic, with no great number of opportunities for showing it. We were so ready to laugh that when a real opportunity came along we improved it and kept on laughing and repeating the cause of our merriment, directing the attention of our friends to it. Whether the story of “Jim Smiley's Frog,” offered for the first time today, would capture the public, and become the initial block of a towering fame, is another matter. That the author himself underrated it is certain. That the public, receiving it at what we now term the psychological moment, may have overrated it is by no means impossible. In any case, it does not matter now. The stone rejected by the builder was made the corner-stone of his literary edifice. As such it is immortal.
In the letter already quoted, Clemens speaks of both Bret Harte and himself as having quit the 'Californian' in future expecting to write for Eastern papers. He adds:
Though I am generally placed at the head of my breed of scribblers
in this part of the country, the place properly belongs to Bret
Harte, I think, though he denies it, along with the rest. He wants
me to club a lot of old sketches together with a lot of his, and
publish a book. I wouldn't do it, only he agrees to take all the
trouble. But I want to know whether we are going to make anything
out of it, first. However, he has written to a New York publisher,
and if we are offered a bargain that will pay for a month's labor we
will go to work and prepare the volume for the press.
Nothing came of the proposed volume, or of other joint literary schemes these two had then in mind. Neither of them would seem to have been optimistic as to their future place in American literature; certainly in their most exalted moments they could hardly have dreamed that within half a dozen years they would be the head and front of a new school of letters—the two most talked-of men in America.
LII. A COMMISSION TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS
Whatever his first emotions concerning the success of “Jim Smiley's Frog” may have been, the sudden astonishing leap of that batrachian into American literature gave the author an added prestige at home as well as in distant parts. Those about him were inclined to regard him, in some degree at least, as a national literary figure and to pay tribute accordingly. Special honors began to be shown to him. A fine new steamer, the Ajax, built for the Sandwich Island trade, carried on its initial trip a select party of guests of which he was invited to make one. He did not go, and reproached himself sorrowfully afterward.
If the Ajax were back I would go quick, and throw up my correspondence. She had fifty-two invited guests aboard—the cream of the town—gentlemen and ladies, and a splendid brass band. I could not accept because there would be no one to write my correspondence while I was gone.
In fact, the daily letter had grown monotonous. He was restless, and the Ajax excursion, which he had been obliged to forego, made him still more dissatisfied. An idea occurred to him: the sugar industry of the islands was a matter of great commercial interest to California, while the life and scenery there, picturesquely treated, would appeal to the general reader. He was on excellent terms with James Anthony and Paul Morrill, of the Sacramento Union; he proposed to them that they send him as their special correspondent to report to their readers, in a series of letters, life, trade, agriculture, and general aspect of the islands. To his vast delight, they gave him the commission. He wrote home joyously now: