A simple citizen may express a desire, with all propriety, in the
matter of recommendation to office, and so I beg permission to hope
that you will retain Mr. Douglass in his present office of Marshal
of the District of Columbia, if such a course will not clash with
your own preferences or with the expediencies and interests of your
Administration. I offer this petition with peculiar pleasure and
strong desire, because I so honor this man's high and blemishless
character, and so admire his brave, long crusade for the liberties
and elevation of his race.
He is a personal friend of mine, but that is nothing to the point;
his history would move me to say these things without that, and I
feel them, too.
Douglass wrote to Clemens, thanking him for his interest; at the end he said:
I think if a man is mean enough to want an office he ought to be
noble enough to ask for it, and use all honorable means of getting
it. I mean to ask, and I will use your letter as a part of my
petition. It will put the President-elect in a good humor, in any
case, and that is very important.
With great respect,
Gratefully yours,
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
Mark Twain's benefactions were not all for the colored race. One morning in February of this same year, while the family were at late breakfast, George came in to announce “a lady waiting to see Mr. Clemens in the drawing-room.” Clemens growled.
“George,” he said, “it's a book agent. I won't see her. I'll die, in my tracks first.”
He went, fuming and raging inwardly, and began at once to ask the nature of the intruder's business. Then he saw that she was very young and modest, with none of the assurance of a canvasser, so he gave her a chance to speak. She told him that a young man employed in Pratt & Whitney's machine-shops had made a statue in clay, and would like to have Mark Twain come and look at it and see if it showed any promise of future achievement. His name, she said, was Karl Gerhardt, and he was her husband. Clemens protested that he knew nothing about art, but the young woman's manner and appearance (she seemed scarcely more than a child) won him. He wavered, and finally promised that he would come the first chance he had; that in fact he would come some time during the next week. On her suggestion he agreed to come early in the week; he specified Monday, “without fail.”
When she was gone, and the door shut behind her, his usual remorse came upon him. He said to himself:
“Why didn't I go now? Why didn't I go with her now?”
She went from Clemens's over to Warner's. Warner also resisted, but, tempted beyond his strength by her charm, laid down his work and went at once. When he returned he urged Clemens to go without fail, and, true to promise, Clemens took Patrick, the coachman, and hunted up the place. Clemens saw the statue, a seminude, for which the young wife had posed, and was struck by its evident merit. Mrs. Gerhardt told him the story of her husband's struggles between his daily work and the effort to develop his talent. He had never had a lesson, she said; if he could only have lessons what might he not accomplish?
Mrs. Clemens and Miss Spaulding called next day, and were equally carried away with Karl Gerhardt, his young wife, and his effort to win his way in art. Clemens and Warner made up their minds to interest themselves personally in the matter, and finally persuaded the painter J. Wells Champney to come over from New York and go with them to the Gerhardts' humble habitation, to see his work. Champney approved of it. He thought it well worth while, he said, for the people of Hartford to go to the expense of Gerhardt's art education. He added that it would be better to get the judgment of a sculptor. So they brought over John Quincy Adams Ward, who, like all the others, came away bewitched with these young people and their struggles for the sake of art. Ward said: