Elmira, N.Y. Aug. 7.
My Dear Millet:
Your letter was mighty welcome1—& as coincidences never cease in this world of
chance, we received one by the same mail from your brother-in-law in the Boston Custom
House.2
We have just read of the big battle, whose name begins with a V.,3 & I write, now with the
gravity becoming a person who is possibly addressing himself to a corpse. I have written
to corpses, before,
unwittingly, but I find a peculiar grandeur in addressing a corpse that may be decorating
a field of battle.
There was a time when I would have liked to be there with you & Forbes, Macgahan,
& Jackson,4 but that time has gone by. I haven’t done any corresponding since I went to Ostend
to
receive the Shah & the Herald folks rung some very vile & offensive sentences into
my account of
that matter.5
We are all extravagantly well, & all send love to our old friend mouldering among
the
other decaying heroes upon the field of blood. Bay does some gaudy recitations, now,
& Susie grows musical
apace. Neither of them has forgotten you.
The play of “Ah Sin” which Bret Harte & I had just finished when
you came to our house, was produced at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, a week
ago, & was received with
great enthusiasm by a large & brilliant audience. I made a speech, among other things.
The weather is very
hot, but the play draws like a blister, nevertheless. I’ve just finished another play.
It has some good
points in it; but I shan’t bring it out for some months yet—maybe a year. It won’t
hurt
to let it ripen under correction.
Joaquin Miller has written a play, which is to be produced at Wood’s Museum, New York,
the 27th of this month. I’ve forgotten the name of it.6
Howells has written a play for Lawrence Barrett. Howells made good pecuniary terms
with him,
& Barrett says is vastly pleased with the play.7
Petroleum V. Nasby wanted me to write a play with him, but I didn’t believe
we’d amount to anything together, & I see by the papers he has got another collaborateur.8 All the
world’s a stage & everybody is writing plays for it.
I never hear of Prentice Mulford now-a-days. Bierce is in San Francisco.9
Mrs. Clemens says please don’t fail to send your photograph according to promise.
We recognize the “famille de coeur”—&
there’s no lie about that, in your case, depend upon it.
Charley Stoddard hasn’t turned up yet. So I suppose he must still be on the other
side.10
Well, good fortune & God be with you!
To the Remains of our friend the
late Frank Millet,
Care of the Vultures.
Explanatory Notes
1
After his stay in Hartford in January 1877, when he painted Clemens’s portrait,
Millet went to France, establishing his studio in Paris (17 Jan 1877 to Boyesen).
Clemens replied to his letter of 9 June, in which he explained his decision, in late
May,
to accept a position as correspondent for the New York Herald, reporting from
Bucharest on the Russo-Turkish War. The letters he mentioned—his “first letter from
Paris” and Clemens’s “answer”—have not been found. Millet wrote (CU-MARK):
My dear Mr Clemens:—When I received your answer to my first letter from Paris
some weeks ago nothing was further from my intention than following the
example of my little circus friend. I am inclined to think now that I am in
Bucharest that there is “Kismet” in it all and that it was intended from the first
that
my chance acquaintance and myself should meet in battle. If he should have his
gun pointed at me to shoot me and suddenly recognize me and fire in the air it
would be quite up to the dramatic standard of the dime novel and would not
surprise me in the least. Two weeks ago if any one had ventured the remark that I
would go to the war I should have called them mad. It happened like this: I had
been in London a day or two to see the pictures there and had steadily refused
offers to go to the war as correspondent because I could not bear to leave my
work. After my return to Paris I received a letter from the manager of the
European correspondence of the N.Y. Herald requesting me to meet him It was a
telegram, rather, and found me only after lying two or three days in the banker’s.
I immediately started down to see him and on the way as I was stopped at a crowded
crossing I blundered right into his carriage and he was on his way up to find me
having that moment learned my address. He said “Will you go to Roumania with
me”? I said “yes”! I refrain from writing you the reasons why I said so; you would
think them strange and perhaps silly ones and, yet, although not a moment passes
but I regret I am not at my easle I am satisfied it was the only thing to do for me
to come. If in this great gambling game I can make any kind of a stroke I am set up
for a year or two. If I lose I still gain something. So here I am buying horses and
camp utensils and baggage waggon and all sorts of paraphernalia to go into the
field. Macgahan and Forbes are here for the Daily News, Jackson and myself for
the N.Y. Herald. There will probably be three columns move into Bulgaria and we
four will cover the field and try and beat the world. We had a most delightful trip
down here via Munich, Vienna[,] Budapest and the Danube as far as it is open then
across Roumania here. It was intensely interesting to see how the excitement about
the war gradually increased as we approached the border and then suddenly was
lost and we couldn=t make it out that it was not all a farce. We expected that we
should see Russian soldiers at the frontier at Vercerova but only one ragged
Roumanian infantryman guarded the ramshackly turnpike gate and we were let into
the country without much of any formula. Not a Russian soldier did we see until
we got to Slatina where we ran plump into a camp of 15 or 20 000 of them. Just at
the frontier, to go back a little, was the famous Turkish fort Sda Kalessi and we
had been looking at it through our field glasses from the hotel window at Orsova
four miles away and expected to see some hostile movements about there when we
dashed along almost under its very walls. But not a soldier did we see, nor a
cannon, only some peaceful looking tents and a couple of red fezed Turks fishing
on the Roumanian shore. It was a great come down to brace ourselves away up to
the notch of seeing a gun or two close at hand and then not so much as to see a
tompion. Edward King was along and we had a great deal of fun out of our worry
about getting into the country. As I said, in Roumania itself there seems to be
perfect peace. The great Russian camps, the great parks of artillery and the herds
of
horses force one to believe that there is a war but the people dont bother
themselves about it half as much as the Parisians do. Even here in Bucharest the
only signs of war are swarms of Russian officers. I hav[e]n’t seen 200 Roumanian
soldiers since I came here. To be sure the cabs are tearing around the streets all
the
time as fast as they can go and the newspapers are filled with accounts of the
bombardment of Gringevo only 30 or 40 miles away but it does not stir us as much as
a squirrel shooting in a country town. It is great fun to stand back and see
yourself get accustomed to these things and to wonder why you are not excited and
whether you will be at all. We go about our preparations for a three months
campaign just about as if we were to go out on a picnic and only are worried at the
possibility of getting beaten by other correspondents. We are very busy of course
and I only sieze this opportunity of writing you because I dont know but I may get
into the mess any day and then I shant have time to write. I wanted to thank you
for the very good letter you sent me at Paris and to explain that I should have
answered it before only I have been employed every moment of my time in fitting
up my house there and in newspaper work in addition to my painting. Charlie
Stoddard who spent a few days there and who is soon to come to America will see
you and tell you just how well we are situated in Paris and all about our
establishment. If I had more time at my disposal I should enjoy writing you about
the country here. You know it is not new to me but it is very little known to of
by the world This war will make people as familiar with the Danubian provinces
as they are with Spain I suppose. The most surprising characteristic of the country
is its great likeness to our South & West. You would feel quite at home here—with
the exception of the language which is peculiar. I am wrestling with that and
Russian and scarcely get time to eat. I can only now stop to send many kind
regards to all your family whom I remember as if I had acquired new
relatives—why dont people recognize the famille de coeur even if there be no drop
of the same blood in its members? I never think of those evenings in Hartford but
I feel a great glow come over me. “Tick! tick!” Tell Mrs Clemens that I have had
my photograph taken to hand in headquarters as part of the formality and if they
are good I will send her one. Please write me and it will be forwarded. Of course
I
only ask you to send me a line and not to use up your valuable time too much. I
shall write again when I have a chanceI enclose address.
Millet’s “little circus friend” was a Hungarian acrobat, one of his studio models,
who
had gone to join the Turkish army (Patton 2014, 224). Edward King (1848–96), an
American writer of travel memoirs, novels, and poetry, lived in Paris and
corresponded for several newspapers, primarily the Boston Journal, before being
assigned to report on the war. The words “Tick! tick!” refer to Millet’s visit to
Hartford in January 1877. Susie Clemens had composed a letter to him, recorded by
Olivia in March: “Papa teached me that tick, tick—my Grandfathers clock was too
large for the shelf so it stood 90 years on the floor. Mr Millett is that the same
clock
that is in your picture” (FamSk, 61). For the other people Millet mentions, see the
notes below.
2 Nathan Frank Dunphe (b. 1842), a clerk at the Boston Custom House, who
married Millet’s older sister, Susan Byram Millet (1844–1917), in 1866 (
Boston Directory
1879, 303). No letter from him to Clemens has been found.
3 The “big battle” in the Russo-Turkish War was over the Bulgarian town of Plevna,
which began in July 1877 and continued for five months until the Turkish forces, who
had held the town, were defeated by the combined Russian and Romanian army. The
conflict received extensive newspaper coverage in the first days of August, and in
his
dispatches Millet described the battles and the horrible carnage he witnessed in the
ruined city (Millet to SLC, 18 Oct 1877,
CU-MARK;
Patton 2014, 185–91, 224–25,
246–48, 255–59;
AutoMT3, 46, 462).
4 Archibald Forbes (1838–1900), a Scotsman, was arguably the most famous war
correspondent of his day, covering numerous conflicts during the 1870s for the
London
Daily News, including the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), the Russo-Turkish
War (1877–78), the Afghan War (1878), and the Anglo-Zulu War (1879). His critics,
however, accused him of writing overdramatic, even falsified, reports. Januarius A.
MacGahan (1844–78), also a correspondent for the
Daily News, began his career in
journalism during the Franco-Prussian War, which he had reported for the New York
Herald. He became famous for his exploits and bravery, and his correspondence
during the Russo-Turkish War helped to bring about the liberation of Bulgaria and
made him a popular hero (
AutoMT3, 461–62). John P. Jackson (d. 1897) worked as
the New York
Herald’s foreign editor before he was sent to correspond from the seat
of war, where Millet joined him. He later served as a music critic for the New York
World, becoming an expert on Wagner’s operas (
Gribayedoff 1895, 39;
Hubert 1891,
362; “Numbered with the Dead,” Chicago
Tribune, 2 Dec 1897, 4).
5 In 1873 Clemens sent five reports to the New York
Herald about the visit of Nasr-Ed-Din, the shah of Persia, to England. They appeared in
the paper on 1, 4, 9, 11, and
19 July of that year. The unauthorized additions Clemens complains of here
influenced his decision to abandon a planned pamphlet edition of these pieces (7 July
1873 and 2 Aug 1873 to Bliss [1st and 2nd of 2],
L5, 409–10, 424–25).
6 Miller’s play,
The Danites, was a melodrama about the eponymous secret
organization of Mormon vigilantes. Opening at the Broadway Theatre (formerly
Wood’s Museum and Metropolitan Theatre) on 22 August 1877, it received mixed
reviews. The New York
Times, for example, found the work’s “obscurity and
tediousness” to be “unpardonable,” but praised the “exceedingly poetical” language
of
some of the speeches (“Broadway Theatre,” New York
Times, 23 Aug 1877, 5;
Dennett 1997, 38–39). The Danites was nevertheless a popular success, and was
produced for many years both in New York and on tour. Miller later admitted that he
did not actually write the script, but had sold the use of his name and the story
on
which the play was based (
Roger A. Hall 2001, 92–99).
7 A Counterfeit Presentment.
8 Clemens had taken a “strong liking” to humorist and satirist Petroleum V. Nasby
(pseudonym of David Ross Locke) in 1869, when they met after Locke’s lecture in
Hartford (
L3: 20 and 21 Jan 1869 to OLL, 56 n. 1; 10 Mar 1869 to OLL and Charles
Langdon, 158;
AutoMT3, 146, 506). Clemens jotted down Locke’s business address in
New York in his 1877 notebook, but it is not known whether the two men saw each
other there (
N&J2, 11). Several newspapers mentioned that Nasby was writing a
“thoroughly American comedy” entitled
The Elegant Smith, and the Burlington (Vt.)
Free Press printed a full description of it in late August, but no evidence has been
found that it was ever staged. Nasby’s collaborator was Charles F. Richardson
(1851–1913), the literary editor of the New York
Independent, a religious weekly. He
was later a professor of Anglo-Saxon and English language at Dartmouth College, his
alma mater, and the author of several works on American literature (“American
Dramatic Literature,”
Literary World, 1 Sept 1877, 63; “The Drama,” Chicago
Tribune,
12 Aug 1877, 12; “Personal,” Burlington
Evening Free Press and Times, 25 Aug 1877, 3;
“Personal,” Burlington
Free Press, 31 Aug 1877, 4).
9 Clemens had last seen poet and journalist Prentice Mulford in London in
December 1873, when his friend was depressed and short of money. Mulford married
and returned to New York in July 1874, which Clemens learned about in early 1875
from Charles Warren Stoddard (
L6: 1 Feb 1875 to Stoddard, 365 n. 1, 366 n. 4; 17
Mar 1875 to Stoddard, 416–18 n. 5). Ambrose Bierce, another old California friend,
was in England in the early 1870s, contributing to journals such as Figaro and Fun,
but
had returned to San Francisco in 1875 (
Walker 1969, 333–38, 348–49).
10 Stoddard lived with Millet in a romantic relationship in Venice in 1874–75, and
they remained close friends. In 1877 he stayed with Millet in Paris before the latter
departed for Romania. After a farewell tour of Italy, he left England and arrived
in
Philadelphia on 26 August. He did not visit the Clemenses until October (
Austen
1991, 72–76, 82–84; 22 Oct 1877 to Stoddard).
MS facsimile, CU-MARK.
MicroPUL, reel 1.