He is a dramatic, lovable creature with his blue silk pocket-handkerchief and red dressing slippers and his quick feelings. I could hate the man who could help loving him—or the woman either.
In the passages touching upon Mark Twain now to be copied from the journals, he is seen, not in Boston, but in Hartford. If Mrs. Fields had continued her diary until 1879, there would doubtless have been a faithful contemporaneous account of the humorist’s unhappy attempt to be funny both in the presence and at the expense of the “Augustans” assembled in honor of Whittier’s seventieth birthday.[35] But Mrs. Fields’s reports of talk and observations under his own roof, in the days when his fame rested entirely upon a handful of his earlier books, should take their place in the authentic annals of an extraordinary personality. On the first of the two occasions recorded, Fields went alone to deliver a lecture in Hartford, and in answer to a post-card invitation signed “Mark,” stayed in the new house of the Clemenses. On the second occasion, three weeks later, Mrs. Fields accompanied him. After her husband’s return from the first visit she wrote:—
April 6, 1876.—He found Mrs. Clemens quite ill. They had been in New York where he had given four lectures hoping to get money for Dr. Brown. He had never lectured there before without making a great deal of money. This time he barely covered his expenses. He was very interesting and told J. the whole story of his life. They sat until midnight after the lecture, Mark drinking ale to make him sleepy. He says he can’t sleep as other people do; his kind of sleep is the only sort for him—three or four hours of good solid comfort—more than that makes him ill; he can’t afford to sleep all his thoughts away. He described the hunger of his childhood for books, how the “Fortunes of Nigel” was one of the first stories which came to him while he was learning to be a pilot on a Mississippi boat. He hid himself with it behind a barrel where he was found by the master, who read him a lecture upon the ruinous effects of reading. “I’ve seen it over and over agin,” he said. “You needn’t tell me anythin’ about it; if ye’re going to be a pilot on this river yer needn’t ever think of reading, for it just spiles all. Yer can’t remember how high the tides was in Can’s Gut three trips before the last now, I’ll wager.” “Why no,” said Mark, “that was six months ago.” “I don’t care if’t was,” said the man. “If you hadn’t been spiling yer mind by readin’ ye’d have remembered.” So he was never allowed to read any more after that. “And now,” says Mark, “not being able to have it when I was hungry for it, I can only read the Encyclopedia nowadays.” Which is not true—he reads everything.
The story of his courtship and marriage, too, was very strange and interesting. A portion of this has, however, leaked into the daily papers, so I will not repeat it here. One point interested me greatly, however, as showing the strength of character and rightness of vision in the man. He said he had not been married many months when his wife’s father came to him one evening and said, “My son, wouldn’t you like to go to Europe with your wife?” “Why yes, sir,” he said, “if I could afford it.” “Well then,” said he, “if you will leave off smoking and drinking ale you shall have ten thousand dollars this next year and go to Europe beside.” “Thank you, sir,” said Mark, “this is very good of you, and I appreciate it, but I can’t sell myself. I will do anything I can for you or any of your family, but I can’t sell myself.” The result was, said Mark, “I never smoked a cigar all that year nor drank a glass of ale; but when the next year came I found I must write a book, and when I sat down to write I found it wasn’t worth anything. I must have a cigar to steady my nerves. I began to smoke, and I wrote my book; but then I couldn’t sleep and I had to drink ale to go to sleep. Now if I had sold myself, I couldn’t have written my book, or I couldn’t have gone to sleep, but now everything works perfectly well.”
He and his wife have wretched health, poor things! And in spite of their beautiful home must often have rather a hard time. He is very eccentric, disturbed by every noise, and it cannot be altogether easy to have care of such a man. It is a very loving household though Mrs. Clemens’s mother, Mrs. Langdon, hardly knows what to make of him sometimes, it is quite evident.
Thursday, April 27, 1876.—We lunched and at 3 P.M. were en route for Hartford. I slept, and read Mr. Tom Appleton’s journal on the Nile, and looked out at the sunset and the torches of spring in the hollows, each in turn, doing more sleeping than either of the others, I fear, because I seem for some unexplained reason to be tired, as Mrs. Hawthorne used to say, far into the future. By giving up to it, however, I felt quite fresh when we arrived, at half-past seven o’clock, Mr. Clemens’ (Mark Twain’s) carriage waiting for us to take us to the hall where he was to perform for the second night in succession Peter Spyle in the “Loan of a Lover.” It is a pretty play, and the girl’s part, Gertrude, was well done by Miss Helen Smith; but Mr. Clemens’ part was a creation. I see no reason why, if he chose to adopt the profession of actor, he should not be as successful as Jefferson in whatever he might conclude to undertake. It is really amazing to see what a man of genius can do beside what is usually considered his legitimate sphere.
Facsimile verses and letter from Mark Twain to Fields