The Grant episode, so important in all its phases, naturally overshadowed other events of 1885. Mark Twain was so deeply absorbed in this great publishing enterprise that he wasted little thought or energy in other directions.
Yet there are a few minor things that it seems worth while to remember. Howells has told something of the Authors' Reading given for the Longfellow Memorial, an entertainment managed by George Parsons Lathrop, though Howells justly claims the glory of having fixed the price of admission at five dollars. Then he recalls a pleasing anecdote of Charles Eliot Norton, who introduced the attractions.
Norton presided, and when it came Clemens's turn to read he introduced him with such exquisite praises as he best knew how to give, but before he closed he fell a prey to one of those lapses of tact which are the peculiar peril of people of the greatest tact. He was reminded of Darwin's delight in Mark Twain, and how when he came from his long day's exhausting study, and sank into bed at midnight, he took up a volume of Mark Twain, whose books he always kept on a table beside him, and whatever had been his tormenting problem, or excess of toil, he felt secure of a good night's rest from it. A sort of blank ensued which Clemens filled in the only possible way. He said he should always be glad he had contributed to the repose of that great man, to whom science owed so much, and then without waiting for the joy in every breast to burst forth, he began to read.
Howells tells of Mark Twain's triumph on this occasion, and in a letter at the time he wrote: “You simply straddled down to the footlights and took that house up in the hollow of your hand and tickled it.”
Howells adds that the show netted seventeen hundred dollars. This was early in May.
Of literary work, beyond the war paper, the “Private History of a Campaign that Failed” (published December, 1885), Clemens appears to have done very little. His thoughts were far too busy with plans for furthering the sale of the great military Memoir to follow literary ventures of his own. At one time he was impelled to dictate an autobiography—Grant's difficulties in his dying hour suggesting this—and he arranged with Redpath, who was no longer a lecture agent and understood stenography, to co-operate with him in the work. He dictated a few chapters, but he was otherwise too much occupied to continue. Also, he was unused to dictation, and found it hard and the result unsatisfactory.
Two open communications from Mark Twain that year deserve to be remembered. One of these; unsigned, was published in the Century Magazine, and expressed the need for a “universal tinker,” the man who can accept a job in a large household or in a community as master of all trades, with sufficient knowledge of each to be ready to undertake whatever repairs are likely to be required in the ordinary household, such as—“to put in windowpanes, mend gas leaks, jack-plane the edges of doors that won't shut, keep the waste-pipe and other water-pipe joints, glue and otherwise repair havoc done in furniture, etc.” The letter was signed X. Y. Z., and it brought replies from various parts of the world. None of the applicants seemed universally qualified, but in Kansas City a business was founded on the idea, adopting “The Universal Tinker” as its firm name.
The other letter mentioned was written to the 'Christian Union', inspired by a tale entitled, “What Ought We to Have Done?” It was a tale concerning the government of children; especially concerning the government of one child—John Junior—a child who, as it would appear from the tale, had a habit of running things pretty much to his own notion. The performance of John Junior, and of his parents in trying to manage him, stirred Mark Twain considerably—it being “enough to make a body's blood boil,” as he confesses—and it impelled him to set down surreptitiously his impressions of what would have happened to John Junior as a member of the Clemens household. He did not dare to show the communication to Mrs. Clemens before he sent it, for he knew pretty well what its fate would be in that case. So he took chances and printed it without her knowledge. The letter was published July 16, 1885. It is too long to be included entire, but it is too illuminating to be altogether omitted. After relating, in considerable detail, Mrs. Clemens's method of dealing with an unruly child—the gentleness yet firmness of her discipline—he concludes:
The mother of my children adores them—there is no milder term for
it—and they worship her; they even worship anything which the touch
of her hand has made sacred. They know her for the best and truest
friend they have ever had, or ever shall have; they know her for one
who never did them a wrong, and cannot do them a wrong; who never
told them a lie, nor the shadow of one; who never deceived them by
even an ambiguous gesture; who never gave them an unreasonable
command, nor ever contented herself with anything short of a perfect
obedience; who has always treated them as politely and considerately
as she would the best and oldest in the land, and has always
required of them gentle speech and courteous conduct toward all, of
whatsoever degree with whom they chanced to come in contact; they
know her for one whose promise, whether of reward or punishment, is
gold, and always worth its face, to the uttermost farthing. In a
word, they know her, and I know her, for the best and dearest mother
that lives—and by a long, long way the wisest....
In all my life I have never made a single reference to my wife in
print before, as far as I can remember, except once in the
dedication of a book; and so, after these fifteen years of silence,
perhaps I may unseal my lips this one time without impropriety or
indelicacy. I will institute one other novelty: I will send this
manuscript to the press without her knowledge and without asking her
to edit it. This will save it from getting edited into the stove.
Susy's biography refers to this incident at considerable length. She states that her father had misgivings after he had sent it to the Christian Union, and that he tried to recall the manuscript, but found it too late. She sets down some comments of her own on her mother's government, then tells us of the appearance of the article: