I dearly love to read books, and I never tire of reading yours; they always have a charm for me. Good-bye, I am afraid I have not expressed what I feel. But at least I have tried. Sincerely yours. MARGARET M.----
Clemens and family left Elmira October the 5th for New York City. They remained at the Hotel Grosvenor until their sailing date, October 24th. A few days earlier, Mr. Frank Doubleday sent a volume of Kipling's poems and de Blowitz's Memoirs for entertainment on the ship. Mark Twain's acknowledgment follows.
To F. N. Doubleday, in New York:
THE GROSVENOR, October 12, '03. DEAR DOUBLEDAY,--The books came--ever so many thanks. I have been reading "The Bell Buoy" and "The Old Men" over and over again--my custom with Kipling's work-and saving up the rest for other leisurely and luxurious meals. A bell-buoy is a deeply impressive fellow-being. In these many recent trips up and down the Sound in the Kanawha-- [Mr. Rogers's yacht.]--he has talked to me nightly, sometimes in his pathetic and melancholy way, sometimes with his strenuous and urgent note, and I got his meaning--now I have his words! No one but Kipling could do this strong and vivid thing. Some day I hope to hear the poem chanted or sung--with the bell-buoy breaking in, out of the distance.
"The Old Men," delicious, isn't it? And so comically true. I haven't arrived there yet, but I suppose I am on the way.... Yours ever, MARK.
P. S. Your letter has arrived. It makes me proud and glad--what Kipling says. I hope Fate will fetch him to Florence while we are there. I would rather see him than any other man.
We've let the Tarrytown house for a year. Man, you would never have believed a person could let a house in these times. That one's for sale, the Hartford one is sold. When we buy again may we--may I--be damned....
I've dipped into Blowitz and find him quaintly and curiously interesting. I think he tells the straight truth, too. I knew him a little, 23 years ago.
The appreciative word which Kipling had sent Doubleday was: "I love to think of the great and God-like Clemens. He is the biggest man you have on your side of the water by a damn sight, and don't you forget it. Cervantes was a relation of his."
XLIII
LETTERS OF 1904. TO VARIOUS PERSONS. LIFE IN VILLA QUARTO. DEATH OF MRS. CLEMENS. THE RETURN TO AMERICA
Mrs. Clemens stood the voyage to Italy very well and, in due time, the family were installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, the picturesque old Palace of Cosimo, a spacious, luxurious place, even if not entirely cheerful or always comfortable during the changeable Tuscan winter. Congratulated in a letter from MacAlister in being in the midst of Florentine sunshine, he answered: "Florentine sunshine? Bless you, there isn't any. We have heavy fogs every morning, and rain all day. This house is not merely large, it is vast--therefore I think it must always lack the home feeling."
Neither was their landlady, the American wife of an Italian count, all that could be desired. From a letter to Twichell, however, we learn that Mark Twain's work was progressing well.
To Rev. J. H. Twichell, in Hartford:
VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE, Jan. 7, '04. DEAR JOE,--. . . I have had a handsome success, in one way, here. I left New York under a sort of half promise to furnish to the Harper magazines 30,000 words this year. Magazining is difficult work because every third page represents 2 pages that you have put in the fire; (because you are nearly sure to start wrong twice) and so when you have finished an article and are willing to let it go to print it represents only 10 cents a word instead of 30.